19 

opy 1 


INTERMARRIAGE 

AND OTHER DISCOURSES 


DELIVERED BEFORE 


Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel 

PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

By 

RABBI ABRAHAM J. FELDMAN, B.A. 


1921-1922 



PHILADELPHIA 


OSCAR KLONOWER 
1922 



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INTERMARRIAGE 

AND OTHER DISCOURSES 

DELIVERED BEFORE 


Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel 

PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

By 

RABBI ABRAHAM J. FELDMAN, B.A. 


1921-1922 



PHILADELPHIA 
OSCAR KLONOWER 

















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V . 






CONTENTS 


Intermarriage . i 

Judaism and Ethical Culture. 13 

Has Reform Judaism Failed?. 25 

Is the World Growing Worse?. 37 

“To Thine Own Self Be True". 49 



















Series XXXV No. 4. 

Jniermamage 


A Discourse at Temple Keneseth Israel. 


By Rabbi Abraham J. Feldman. 
November 27, 1921. 


Scripture Lesson: Genesis 11:18-24; Ruth I: 1-19. 


In the July number of the Atlantic Monthly there 
appeared an article from the pen of one Paul Scott Mowrer 
entitled The Assimilation of Israel. The author of the arti¬ 
cle, it appears, is the Paris representative of the Chicago 
Daily News. I know nothing of the -man’s previous ac¬ 
quaintance with or knowledge of Jewish life, tradition or 
teaching. His article does not betray any such knowledge 
or. acquaintance. The article bears as a superscription, a 
biblical verse which seems to serve as the author’s text 
and suggests his reasoning and argument. It is from the 
book of Esther and is Haman’s charge: “There is a certain 
people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples— 
and their laws are diverse from those of every people.” 
And this is his argument. 

Anti-Semitism is growing by leaps and bounds. The 
Jew is hated and feared. He is attacked in all forums of 
public expression. Sentiment against him is growing. This 
Jew-hatred is no longer a matter to be ignored. It is not 
sporadic. It has become “a true movement of opinion.” 
There is a cause for these persistent manifestations and this 
cause “is political. It is based,” says this man, “on the ob¬ 
servation that the Jews, through innumerable transmuta¬ 
tions of time and place, not only have kept their identity 
as a people, but have opposed a vigorous, if passive, resist¬ 
ance to most attempts at assimilation. The Jew, in short, 
is regarded as a foreigner whose ‘laws are diverse from all 
people,’ and as such, he is considered to be an enemy of the 
State.” 

After some delving into* what is paraded to be Jewish 
history but which in truth is only the kind of history which 
is concocted by Ford’s underlings o ^Dm-rbornMnAependent 
infamy, he proceeds to tell us that—' 







“Though many western European Jews have been more or 
less assimilated during the last hundred years, there are still 
many others who, though emancipated so far as external restric¬ 
tions are concerned, have not desired, or have been unable, to 
shake off the clannishness, the peculiar mentality, inbred by 
twenty or thirty centuries of almost unbroken traditions; they 
may not go to the synagogue, or even to the reformed tabernacle 
but they would be repelled at the idea of marrying outside the 
race. . . . Their inner emancipation, their emancipation from 
the history and customs of Israel, is still to be effected. There 
can be no true assimilation so long as there is not free inter¬ 
marriage; and until 'there is evidence of a rapidly increasing as¬ 
similation, the Jewish question, with its attendant fervor of anti- 
Semitism, will continue to occupy men’s minds.” 


He, then, proceeds to assail the religious ideals of the 
Jew. In this, too, he proves himself so unthinkably shallow 
and Bourbon as to make it laughable were it not for the 
fact that uninformed people take it to be ‘‘gospel truth.” 
By way of example, take this gem of thought— 

“Even after they have forsworn their religion completely, a 
tendency has been remarked among the Jews to cling to the idea, 
not only that all men are entitled to be happy even in this life 
(as distinguished from ‘some future existence’), but that all men 
are equal before God. ... A poor man, imbued with this 
spirit, and looking about him upon the present world, is inevitably 
exposed to the temptation of becoming a malcontent or even. an 
agitator.” 

It seems that there are no depths of hypocrisy too low 
for some of these people. They stop at nothing, however 
much they may have to pervert truth, in order to make a 
point. 

Mr. Mowrer then turns to the situation in America 
and asserts upon his journalistic authority that “the popular 
(American) nationalistic suspicion (is) that the Jews are 
willfully resisting assimilation” and issues this threat or 
warning out of the fullness of his journalistic American¬ 
ism— 


“Overburdened already with German-Americans whose hearts 
are in Germany, with Irish-Americans whose hearts are in Ire¬ 
land, and with numerous other varieties of half-digested foreign¬ 
ers she would like to be able to count at least on the full alle¬ 
giance of her Jewish citizens, whose record in the war was ex¬ 
cellent, and to feel that, however much they may be drawn by a 
fellow sentiment with distant co-religionists, their hearts, never¬ 
theless, have been definitely surrendered to the land of their 
election, even to the point—when no imperious religious reasons 
intervene—of accepting the idea of marriage with non-Jewish 
fellow citizens.” 


3 


This, then, is his suggested solution of the Jewish 
problem—Assimilation through Intermarriage of Jews with 
non-Jews. Jewish loyalty to this man is a political loyalty 
a loyalty to a foreign political organism which no modern 
State and certainly not the American State can tolerate, 
should tolerate, or wants to tolerate. It is not, according to 
him, a loyalty to ideas, to a great spiritual heritage; not a 
loyalty to God and Faith; it is purely a beastly, 
material devotion to a law which keeps the Jew distinct, a 
law, that is diverse from the laws of all other peoples, a 
political law. 

After the reading of his article one realizes that his 
sin is not only one of commission—in that he makes an ig¬ 
norant charge, but one of omission as well, for in omitting 
the rest of the charge of Haman he shows that he lacks 
even the frankness of Haman. For, says Haman, this 
people scattered and dispersed, whose laws are diverse from 
those of other people, “Keep not the king’s laws, therefore 
it profiteth not the king to suffer them. If it please the king, 
let it be written that they be destroyed.” This, precisely, is 
Mowrer’s charge and solution, in part direct, in part insin¬ 
uated, except that he suggests that the Jew destroy himself ere 
he is destroyed and crushed by the modern “true movement 
of opinion,” as he pleases to call anti-Semitism. 

Last October another voice was heard. This time not 
the voice of a journalist, but the voice of a scientist, the 
voice of one who has made a life study of anthropology, the 
science of man’s development, of the effect of environment 
upon racial groups, the voice of Dr. Maurice Fishberg, a 
Jew by birth, and the author of a renowned work called 
“The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment.” Speak¬ 
ing at the recent International Congress of Eugenics, he 
said, according to newspaper reports: 

“When we contemplate that the Jews constitute much less 
than one-fourth of one per cent, of white humanity, and then ob¬ 
serve the enormous number of great and talented men and 
women among them, it is clear, fusion with them can only prove 
beneficial. The only losers appear to be the Jews, because the 
best from among them are thus diverted into other groups.” 

These two in addition to minor voices heard frequently 
urging intermarriage between Jew and Christian; these 
and the not uncommon occurrence of such mixed mar- 


4 


riages deserve a statement from the Jewish pulpit, a state¬ 
ment that would inform Christians of their misunderstand¬ 
ing of the Jewish position, as well as Jews, especially young 
Jews, who ask to be informed of the modern Jewish atti¬ 
tude towards this problem. 

Let it be understood at the very outset that authorita¬ 
tive, recognized Jewish law has at no time in the course of 
its development, and never in the history of the Jew opposed 
intermarriage on the ground of racial superiority. Rather 
is the reverse true. Through the dark days of medisevalism 
it was the Jew who was considered inferior racially. 
Through the various interdictions by Christianity of mar¬ 
riage between Jew and Christian, from the days Constan- 
tius in 339 when such intermarriage brought the penalty 
of death, through the bans by various Church Councils and 
the edicts of mediaeval kings in the various lands of Jewish 
domicile prohibiting such unions, Christendom thought of 
the Jew as a being that was hardly human. Conjugal union 
with Jew or Jewish was considered unnatural, and unthink¬ 
able, and contact with the Jew was adjudged contaminating, 
whether the contact was commercial or social or marital. 
The Jew, however, never thought of himself as being hu¬ 
manly, racially better than others. He resented the charge 
of inferiority, but he proclaimed human equality, in the 
spirit of Israel’s prophetic son who said: “Have we not all 
one Father, hath not one God created us all?” 

If the Jew has opposed intermarriage, and he has op¬ 
posed it, it was always because of the fear expressed in the 
Bible that such marriages might turn away the son of Israel 
(or the daughter of Israel) from following the teachings 
of the God of Israel, because it threatened not the Jewish 
“solidarity” of which Mowrer speaks, but loyalty to Juda¬ 
ism, to the faith, to the religion of the Jew, because it en¬ 
dangered Israel’s existence as the servant of God, as a peo¬ 
ple, to be sure, but a people living not merely for the sake 
of living, and continuing not only because of the sheer acci¬ 
dent of its being, but a people with a task divinely assigned 
to it of yore, a task as yet unfulfilled, an obligation from 
which he has never been discharged. 

It has been pointed out numerous times that there were 
periods in Jewish history when intermarriage was common 
and frequent. The patriarchs, Abraham and Jacob, took 
to concubines their wives’ servants, Joseph married an 


5 


Egyptian woman, Moses, before he became the redeemer of 
Israel, married Zipporah, the Midianitish woman, Samson 
married Delilah the Philistine woman, David married a 
Geshurite woman, Solomon married many foreign women, 
and the exiles to Babylon married so many foreign women 
that it became necessary for Ezra and Nehemiah, the lead¬ 
ers of the restored Palestinian community, to issue a ban 
against such marriages and to urge separation or divorce. 

Intermarriage must have been common to' some extent 
during the early Christian centuries, else would the Church 
Councils and Christian emperors not resorted to a death 
penalty to stop these. These edicts effectively checked inter¬ 
marriage through the Middle Ages. With the emancipa¬ 
tion of the Jews in modern times, when civil and political 
rights were given the Jews, there was a weakening of the 
religious life of the Jew and apostasy and intermarriage 
became frequent. It became less infrequent also, for an¬ 
other reason. Education became more universal and Jew¬ 
ish children came into closer contact with non-Jewish chil¬ 
dren. From, adolescent infatuations to the flame of true love 
is but a step, and when love played its tuneful harmony, 
and the symphony of the heart sounded its bewitching melo¬ 
dies, faith, traditions, customs were often of no avail. For 
when the voice of love speaks the call of loyalty to abstract 
ideals is unheard, and the summons of loyalty to tradition 
and traditional obligations falls on deaf ears when youth and 
maiden see no one but each other, hear no one, are con¬ 
scious of nothing else but of the imperious urge of youth¬ 
ful love. 

But be it remembered that throughout history inter¬ 
marriage was looked upon with disfavor and disapproval 
both by synagogue and church, and the disapproval of the 
synagogue in particular was not at all due to the thought 
of any racial superiority. There is not a race on earth that 
can claim absolute racial purity. Some are purer than 
others, some have a greater admixture of alien blood than 
others. Purely racial groups such as the Celts, the Gauls, the 
Teutons, can in modern society have no reason for objec¬ 
ting to the intermarriage of the races. They may even 
have much to gain and very little to lose. They can inter¬ 
marry without violating any religious sanction. But the 
Jews constitute more than a mere race. They are a reli¬ 
gious brotherhood, a religious fraternity. And where the 


6 


religious element enters in, marriage is not and cannot be 
what Dr. Fishberg and his eugenistic confreres consider it 
to be. It is not merely a matter of physical union, for breed¬ 
ing purposes. Humans are not cattle. The difference between 
animal and man lies in the possession of a soul, of intelli¬ 
gence, of aesthetic tastes, of a God-consciousness, of mystic 
propensities and emotions. And it is this difference that 
has made for man’s development from the lower stages to 
the higher, as his soul developed, and as he grew in intel¬ 
lectual power, as he learned to interpret his own observa¬ 
tions as well as the experience of the race, as he advanced 
from the barnyard marriage through the stages of polygamy 
and polyandry to the high estate of the present monoga¬ 
mous marriage. And he has learned by experience that 
marriage is not merely a union of the flesh, but a union of 
spirits, a communion of souls. 

“It is not a question of single, kindly acts,” says Prof. Laz¬ 
arus in his great work “The Ethics of Judaism,” “nor of services 
rendered and favors received The idea is that both husband 
and wife are to be changed spiritually, purged, exalted, so that 
in their way and sphere, they may accomplish, through their 
marriage, the ultimate purpose of all morality, the close joining 
of souls to make a spiritual unit.” 

This is the Jewish ideal of marriage. Not a theoreti¬ 
cal ideal, not an abstract rule of ethics, but an ideal that 
has been lived, that has been realized, an ideal to the fulfil¬ 
ment of which a world is witness and all literature bears 
testimony. Those who know the history of the Jew and 
have looked into the secret of the Jew’s persistence in the 
face of the most determined efforts to annihilate him, know 
that it was the Jewish home, with its idealism, its undivided 
loyalty, its spirituality, that has been the cause of this mira¬ 
cle of a minority’s preservation. Marriage to the Jew is a 
divine institution no less than a social contract, and perfect 
union and harmony between husband and wife must pre¬ 
vail ere it can be a true marriage. Husband and wife must 
be as one, in interests, in affection, in service. “Therefore 
does man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto 
his wife and they become as one being”—this is the magnifi¬ 
cent biblical conception of marriage. This sums up the Jew¬ 
ish ideal of marriage. 

Now, is this ideal realized in the mixed marriage? 
When Jew and non-Jew intermarry, do they become as one 


7 


being? In rare cases, in very rare cases, yes. But in the 
great majority of cases—no. It is but natural. When we 
remember that all of us are products of our environment, 
that to it we owe not only many of our physical character¬ 
istics, but also conceptions of truth and God, that 
in our native environment we receive our inevitable 
racial and religious prejudices, that however indifferent we 
may become to the religion of our fathers, the 
views of those fathers have by the time we have reached ma¬ 
turity colored our life, have influenced our attitude, 
towards other people as well as our conceptions of right and 
wrong, have moulded our habits of thought and life, and 
have established for us our social contacts and friend¬ 
ships—we can well realize that no civil contract, nor religious 
formula can eradicate or undo these. We may succeed in 
submerging these for a time—we cannot remove them en¬ 
tirely. Love in its early blush of ardor may crowd them 
out, may screen or hide all these things gotten from our 
fathers, but they do come to the surface again and again. 
And when they do, then is there no longer a spiritual unity 
possible, even as their very coming to the surface reveals a 
previous state of disunion, and pain, and suffering, and 
humiliation, and struggle, and tragedy. And where there 
is disunion and disharmony there are husband and wife no 
longer as one being—and the ideal of marriage is shat¬ 
tered, shattered sometimes, alas!, beyond the possibility of 
resurrection. 

And we must remember also, that our homes consti¬ 
tute our earliest society. We are born into that society. 
Until we are self-sustaining we are seldom out of the 
sphere of that society’s influence, and very often not even 
then. The home’s influence penetrates our lives through a 
myriad impressions and through a countless number of 
channels. The customs and traditions of home, the 
thoughts there regnant, the words there spoken, the atmos¬ 
phere that surrounds us there, the events that transpire 
there, the community of interests and affections there cre¬ 
ated, of likes and dislikes, of beliefs and preferences— 
these become the treasury of childhood memories which re¬ 
mains with us for life, and which we cannot obliterate. 

, Now, then, bring into a home a husband or wife, com¬ 
ing from a similar type of home, where a similar environ¬ 
ment and atmosphere influenced life and thought, and there 


8 


is every reasonable possibility of happiness and harmony. 
But bring some one from an entirely different type of home., 
some one whose training, whose religious ideals have been 
entirely different, and a factor is introduced that cannot be 
ignored, that must create friction, aggravation, humiliation, 
and a situation is created that makes spiritual union and the 
ideal married state, except in very rare cases, well-nigh im¬ 
possible. 

For, you see, when we speak of mixed marriages we 
mean not that union where, let us say, the non- 
Jew embraces Judaism* before marriage. That is then not 
intermarriage. For then Jew marries Jew, and even accord¬ 
ing to the most orthodox Jewish law the proselyte is 
a Jew religiously and has the same privileges even in the 
most sacred and significant moments of Jewish life as is 
the one who is born a Jew. Where as a result of study 
and conviction the ancestral faith is foresaken and the other 
faith is embraced, the most serious disturbing factors is elim¬ 
inated. Social differences there may be then—but these 
may be adjusted. But religious convictions, rooted as they 
are in the emotions, are less easily adjusted, and where the 
marriage is blessed with children adjustment is impossible 
without the serious violation of the feelings* the sentiments, 
the emotions of the one or the other parent. In such a 
state what is the religious heritage of the child? Consid¬ 
ering that religion for the child is entirely a matter of ex¬ 
ample set by parents, what is the possible condition of the 
religious views of the child reared in such a divided home? 

An experience I had only five months after my ordina¬ 
tion will, I think, clarify the point. A member of my con¬ 
gregation who had married out' of the faith, came to me 
with a problem and asked for my advice. I gave him my 
opinion, but to be certain of the correctness of my attitude 
I wrote to Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, then president of the 
Hebrew Union College, stated the situation and my opin¬ 
ion, and asked.for his opinion. My letter to him and his 
reply were by him reported to the Central Conference of 
American Rabbis. Permit me to read this correspondence to 
you,* 


*Yearbook C. C. A. R., vol. xxix, p. 76 f. 



9 


•. <4 A member of my congregation,” I wrote, “approached me 
with the following difficulty. His wife was a Christian (Metho¬ 
dist), and a New York Rabbi married them. The woman is now 
expecting a child, and the man wanted me to advise him in what 
faith the expected child is to be reared. His wife never accepted 
Judaism. Her mother is a strict Methodist; his mother is a 
Jewess, and each wants the child reared in her respective faith. 
I have made inquiry of the New York Rabbi who married them, 
and he assures me that he never married a couple under such 
circumstances without getting the promise- of the alien party to 
rear the children in the Jewish faith, and to study (by himself 
or herself) some guide to Jewish instruction. He also tells me 
that they abjure their old faith in his presence and promise to 
cast their lot in with our people. He remembers marrying this 
couple and is certain that he exacted such a promise from this 
woman. (This Rabbi does not go through the formality of issu¬ 
ing a paper of conversion in the presence of witnesses.) 

“I feel that I would not be justified in saying that the child 
should be reared as a Jew, if the mother is and intends to remain 
a Christian. It would be dividing the home, and the child would 
hardly be Jewish. It would be mockery and hypocrisy. On the 
other hand, how could I, a Jewish teacher, tell the parents to 
raise the child a Christian ? I feel, if the child is to be reared in 
our faith, that the mother must cease to be a Christian. If the 
child is to be reared in the Christian faith, the father cannot re¬ 
main a Jew without—in later years—taking the consequence of 
having children who would mock and scoff and deride him. If 
this is not a certainty, it is, to say the least, a possibility or a 
probability. Again, then, how can I, how dare I, advise this man 
who wants to remain a Jew (or he would not belong to a con¬ 
gregation and be a frequent attendant at services), to change his 
faith? I will, of course, urge the mother to become a Jewess. 
But if she refuses, what shall my advice be?” 

“The Jewish law,” Professor Kohler replied, “declares that 
the child of a non-Jew has its character determined by the mother. 
The Christian wife of your member should, therefore, be per¬ 
suaded as far as possible, especially for the sake of the husband 
who wants to have a Jewish home, to become a Jewess in order 
to have her child born as a Jew. Of course, when raised as a 
Jew (in the event of the non-conversion of the mother), the 
child could afterward through Confirmation be adopted into the 
Jewish fold like any proselyte. On the other hand, it must be 
stated that the Rabbi who solemnized the marriage of a Jew to a 
non-Jewess did not act in conformity with the Jewish law. . . . 
Mixed marriages belong before the civil magistrate who is to 
give them legal sanction. The Jewish religion cannot consecrate 
a home divided by two different creeds, as you well state.” 


I communicated this opinion to the husband, and when 
the child was born, a daughter, the Methodist branch of the 
household won the day. 

These, friends, are some of the factors that enter into 
the determination of the Jewish position on intermarriage. 
Those mentioned heretofore concerned primarily the lives 
of the contracting parties. But Judaism represents an in- 


10 


terpretation of life, a point of view shared by a community 
of people. Convinced as we are of the rightness and right¬ 
eousness of our cause, conscious as we are of the tremen¬ 
dous obligation resting upon us to remain true to truth, to 
remain faithful to our superb heritage, aware as we are of 
our spiritual task and mission, and concerned as we must 
be with the preservation of Jew and Judaism, dare we do 
aught else but interdict and discourage marriages of sons 
or daughters of Israel with those whose faith is not ours, 
whose teachings are not ours, whose religious message has 
not yet reached the sublime heights of Judaism? 

Were Judaism to permit intermarriage, Jews and Juda¬ 
ism in the course of a few numbered generations would 
cease to be. To preserves these, Judaism must insist upon 
religious separateness and distinctiveness. As it has been so 
well put by my teacher, Prof. Jacob Z. Lauterbach, of the 
Hebrew Union College, in his recent magnificent essay on 
“The Attitude of the Jew towards the Non-Jew,” 

“Judaism insists upon the religious separateness of the Jew 
from other people not because of hatred or contempt for the 
rest of humanity, but on the contrary, out of love for human¬ 
ity. ... It imposes upon them special historic obligations, 
prescribes for them special rituals, and religious institutions, 
demands of them that they preserve their identity and maintain 
their unique character by being loyal to their sacred traditions 
and by cherishing and cultivating their great spiritual heritage, 
in order that they may be the better fitted for achieving the 
special task assigned to them in the economy of nations. 

“This task is to become a blessing unto all the families of 
the earth and to benefit humanity. The Jew must therefore avoid 
anything that might impair his usefulness in that direction or 
hinder him in the accomplishment of his noble task. ... In 
other words, the Jew must be separatists in order to be truly 
universalistic. His separateness is not an end in itself, but 
merely a means to an end. . . . The universalistic tendency 

gives the fundamental tone to all Jewish religious literature, it 
echoes from all the Jewish liturgy, it forms the special theme 
of the choicest prayers recited by the Jews on the most solemn 
occasions; it has always been, and still is, the hope and the 
aspiration of every Jew, no matter to what group or party he 
may belong.” 


Thus, chosen not for special kindness, nor for special 
privileges, but for service, and that service not to self but to 
mankind, to the world, having gone through, as the Jew has, 
the baptism of both fire and water, literally as well as figur¬ 
atively, crucified upon a thousand crosses, crowned with the 
diadem of martyrdom for Truth, for Faith, for Ideals, for 


II 


God, and believing as we do in our destiny and mission, how 
can we even consider Fishberg’s cattle-breeding theories, or 
be affrighted by Mowrer’s Hamanism with his threats of 
persecution and destruction? 

If there is a science of patient suffering, then is the 
Jew an adept in it. If there is an art of suffering martyr¬ 
dom for convictions, then is the Jew a master of it. 

I, for one, friends, would not be opposed to mixed 
marriages, modern Judaism, I believe, would not oppose 
these, as it does, were we assured, could we be certain, 
that the children of mixed marriages would be reared and 
trained as Jews. Then would Judaism not lose, it might even 
become the gainer, and the world would gain through Isra¬ 
el’s gain. But*when statistic^ gathered not by official Jew¬ 
ish sources but by governments, and accepted even by Dr. 
Fishberg in proof of the assimilability of the Jew, prove that 
between seventy-five per cent, and eighty-five per cent, of 
children born of mixed marriages are lost to Judaism—think 
of it!—and are brought up in the dominant Faith, shall 
Judaism, if it be worthy of itself, of its past achievements 
and of its future hope, if it is not, indeed, to become what 
Sargent pictured the Synagogue (the organized expression 
of Judaism) as being, a broken, dishevelled woman tottering 
on her throne, her crown fallen, her sceptre broken, because 
of having failed to show that strength and courage which 
would have assured her life—shall Judaism sanction inter¬ 
marriage thus signing her own death warrant, and as the 
great David Einhorn said, “furnish a nail to the coffin of 
the small Jewish race, with its sublime mission”? 

This is the situation confronting us when we contem¬ 
plate this question, and it was these considerations that on 
November 16, 1909, prompted the Central Conference of 
American Rabbis, the association of the Reform Rabbis of 
America, to adopt this resolution: 

“The Central Conference of American Rabbis declares 
that mixed marriages are contrary to the tradition of the 
Jewish religion and should therefore be discouraged by 
the American Rabbinate.” 

The wording of the resolution is such as to leave it 
with the conscience of the individual Rabbis to officiate at 
mixed marriage when circumstances arise where conversion 
is inadvisable, and there is a reasonable certainty that Juda- 


12 


ism would not lose thereby. This resolution still stands as 
the opinion of the Reform Rabbinate of America. 

This, then, is the attitude of modern Judaism towards 
the problem of intermarriage. We do not favor it, we do 
not approve of it, we do not sanction it. Not because we 
think ourselves better than others. We do not. Not be¬ 
cause we are blind to the tenderness and the beauty and 
the significance of love. We are not blind to these. We dis¬ 
courage mixed marriages because the ideal marriage must 
constitute a spiritual union, and where faiths are different 
and continue to be different even after marriage, there is no 
spiritual union possible. We discourage it, because a religious 
minority mixed marriages threaten our existence, because 
the. encouragement of mixed marriages would mean Juda¬ 
ism’s disappearance, a fact which when established would 
mean an indescribable loss to humanity, to religion in gen¬ 
eral. 

We welcome those who would enter the Jewish home, 
who would come into Jewish life, we welcome them cor¬ 
dially, sincerely. But they must come as Ruth, of the bibli¬ 
cal story came, to become of us, soul of our soul, spirit of 
our spirit, as our co-religionists, prepared to share with us 
our fate, our destiny, to serve with us, and to suffer with 
us, if need be; to be of us, ready, as Ruth was, to sacrifice 
for her new conviction, with the steadfastness of Ruth who 
said: 

“Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou 
lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and 
thy God my God.” 


Series XXXV. 


No. 8. 


Sluiiaism anil lEtljtral (Eultnrp 


A Discourse at Temple Keneseth Israel. 


By Rabbi Abraham J. Feldman. 


Philadelphia, December 25, 1921. 


In the November (1921) issue of The Standard, the 
official organ of the Ethical Culture Society, there appears an 
article by Dr. Henry Neumann, one of the leading spirits of 
the Ethical Movement in America, entitled; What Does the 
Ethical Movement Say About Judaism? This article, orig¬ 
inally an address delivered by Dr. Neumann before tho 
Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, of which he is the 
leader, is but another attempt often made by other lectur¬ 
ers of the Ethical Movement to point out the superiority of 
Ethical Culture to Judaism. 

It summarizes very definitely the position and attitude 
of Ethical Culture towards Religion in general and Judaism 
in particular. And although every lecturer and writer of 
the Society is careful to repeat what is tantamount to a 
dogma that he is voicing only his own opinions, and that 
these opinions are not to be saddled upon the Ethical Culture 
Societies, a careful reading and study of the opinions of 
most of them reveal a remarkable unanimity. 

I have read and studied the available literature on the 
subject, from Professor Felix Adler’s magnum opus — “An 
Ethical Philosophy of Life” through numerous pamphlets, 
addresses and articles, and their magazine, and I believe that 
I am justified in saying that insofar as the Ethical Culture 
Society assumes an attitude of superiority towards Judaism 
it has yet to prove its thesis, and to defend its attitude when 
measured by the facts and emphases of modern Judaism, 
particularly that “Liberal Judaism” which Dr. Neumann 
in this published address misunderstands or misrepresents. 

When a few years ago a leading American Rabbi char¬ 
acterized the Ethical Culture Society as “a synagogue with¬ 
out God,” Dr. Felix Adler’s reply in the public press was, 






14 


that the day has passed when there was need for the kind 
of discussion which the Rabbi’s characterization challenged. 
That may be so. But when in every exposition of the Ethical 
Culture Movement statements are made such as Dr. Adler 
makes in his books, as Dr. Neumann and Dr. Martin and 
their associates make in their addresses and writings, and 
when especially many of our people are attracted by the un¬ 
refuted statements, I believe that an answer is due, an an¬ 
swer that shall be as emphatic as the claims of the Ethical 
Movement with reference to Judaism, are unfounded and 
unjustified. 

Ere I state a single argument, however, I would have 
you understand my motive and attitude. There is much 
vagueness existing among Jews and non-Jews about the 
content of Judaism, its message and its hope. There is, too, 
much misinformation being spread broadcast concerning the 
Jew and Judaism. Most of it is so formulated as to be¬ 
guile the uninformed and the little-informed. A catchword, 
an attractive motto, a euphonious phrase is sounded, and 
many in Israel’s ranks, many who crave the designations of 
“modern” and “liberal,” readily “take it up”—I believe this 
is the current phrase—with that zeal, that extreme fervor 
which are so characteristic of the high-strung Jew. I conceive 
it as the supreme function of a Jewish teacher to teach and 
to interpret Judaism, and the duty of the modern Jewish 
teacher it is to reinterpret in the light of the advancement 
and progress of a new day the ancient teachings of the Jew. 
It is his sacred duty to fortify his people whose teacher he is, 
to strenghten them in their convictions, to give to them the 
results of that training and study which are his life’s work, 
and which the people, for reasons into which we need not 
enter now, do not or cannot receive elsewhere. 

Hence my choice of this particular theme for this morn¬ 
ing’s instruction. My attitude is one of high regard for the 
sincere convictions of others. I have a profound respect 
for Professor Felix Adler, the founder and head of the 
Ethical Culture Society, and I pay here high and unstinting- 
tribute to his life of noble service, of idealism, of genuine 
achievement. There is no doubt but that the American com¬ 
munity is the better for hi*s life and the richer for his service. 

In paying this well-merited tribute, however, it does 
not necessarily follow that one therefore subscribes to Dr. 
Adler’s opinions, or yields the right to examine them in the 


*5 


light of history and reason, and to differ from him. When 
recently Rabbi Krauskopf joined the Catholics of this city 
m honoring their new Cardinal, or on a previous occasion 
voiced the admiration of our entire community for Cardinal 
Mercier, the heroic Belgian prelate, no one in his senses 
could have interpreted the Rabbi’s tribute to character and 
service as a surrender on his part of the teachings of the 
Jew. 

My attitude is one of human respect and recognition of 
service rendered to humanity. But it is also an attitude of 
frank and honest criticism of the teachings and claims of 
those who are the responsible leaders and lecturers of the 
Ethical Culture Society. We are not dealing with persons 
but with ideas. Love and respect them as we might and do, 
they, of all, would be the last to deny Judaism the right or 
opportunity to be heard in refutation or rebuttal. 

Dr. Neumann in his article says: 

“Some people suppose that the chief interest of the Ethical 
Movement is to attack Judaism and Christianity and to draw people 
away from these ancestral associations. This is not our purpose 
even though the majority of our members have left the religious 
homes of their fathers. We think we have something better to 
offer.” 

A Jew by birth, like the founder of the Society, he, like 
the founder, has forsaken Judaism. He recognizes, how¬ 
ever, “the debt we owe to the past.” He realizes that Judaism 
“still” has much “to challenge our admiration.” He knows 
that Judaism—through Christianity—has conquered “the 
entire Western world,” and that it conquered not with 
swords, not with weapons “forged of steel.” “They were 
the weapons of an intense moral earnestness.” The Jew 
conquered by his ideals, and 

“the leading Jewish ideals were justice, tenderness, piety, mercy. 
These people looked out upon the world and saw how king after 
king had mounted to power upon the ruin of weaker neighbors. 
They saw men brutalized under the lust for glory and material 
might. They said in their day of sorrow that the greatest among 
men was he who would take upon himself not power but suffering 
for the sake of his people. . . . Such was Israel’s conception of 
greatness. Our own age, tempted to indulge in dreams of size and 
martial prowess and to look with envious awe upon the qualities 
which brought power to the Babylonian, to the Greek and the Roman 
conquerors, may well ponder the wiser words of the Jewish sages: 
‘Righteousness exalteth a nation,’ ‘in quietness and in confidence shall 
be your strength.’ ” 

He points out, and correctly, that “the leading motive 
in Judaism is expressed in Leviticus xix” (which I have 


i6 


read to you). It is the motif of holiness in the sense of 
Righteousness, holiness as Duty, holiness as a standard of 
conduct. It was not an abstract ideal of Duty, for it found 
expression in 

“duties of justice and mercy toward the aged and the young, toward 
brother and sister, parent, neighbor, alien. They had duties toward 
the afflicted. There were duties to the poor. There were duties to 
those whom you might prefer to hate and to treat as they had treated 
you. ... In every situation, whether joyous or sad, in every 
relationship the Jew is taught, there are certain right things that 
must be done; learn what these are and do them.” 

And he concludes his resume of Judaism’s ethical teach¬ 
ings with this eloquent passage: 

“All honor to- their wisdom! It is right that outworn teachings 
should be discarded; but when will mankind outgrow the need for 
justice and mercy, for truthful lips and the clean heart? . . . Be¬ 
fore we reject completely the teachings of the fathers, let us ask our¬ 
selves whether we can at least be as earnest as they about the 
things of everlasting value. In our eagerness to be wholly modern, 
may we not be in danger of missing a certain greatness in life which 
their religion taught them to see?” 

But despite all these merits, the Ethical Culture Society 
“has something better to offer,” we are told. And this 
“something better” consists of what? 

An examination of the literature of the Ethical Move¬ 
ment reveals an interesting array of claims. It is claimed, in 
the first place, that Judaism is concerned primarily with the 
past and not with the future, and this despite the fact that 
Israel looks ever forward to the coming of the day of 
prophetic fulfillment. It is claimed that while Judaism hasj 
a moral, an ethical content, that content is negative rather 
than positive; its emphasis is not “We Ought,” “We 
Must,” but “Thou shalt not,” forgetting the injunction “to 
do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly,” quoting, but re¬ 
maining unmindful of the positive significance of the man¬ 
date “Learn to do good, set the oppressed free,” forgetful 
that even the negative “Thou shalt not kill,” enjoins 
men to preserve life, to revere it and to protect it. It is 
claimed that Judaism emphasizes prayer as against the deed, 
choosing to forget at the same time the prophetic words: 

“When ye make many prayers, 

I will not hear ; 

Wash you, make you clean, 

Cease to do evil; 

Learn to do well; 

Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, 

Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” Isaiah i: 15-17. 


It is claimed that Judaism fails to recognize the discoveries 
of science, forgetting that modern Judaism is keeping 
abreast of science and accepts all that has been scientifically 
established and proven, and adapts itself to these discoveries 
of Divine Law. And in the same breath with thes^ we are 
patted on the back, as it were, and told that the good that we 
do have in Judaism, “a certain ethical perception and joined 
with it a certain passionate eagerness to live as that percep¬ 
tion requires,” that these are “a truth of science,” that “the 
real heart of your religion is in accord with modern science,” 
that Judaism’s message is a social message. Let the Jew, 
therefore, cease to isolate himself, let him “keep the heart 
of his religion, but do not imagine for a moment that that 
consists in observing certain rites, or in keeping certain 
days, or in making prayers, or in monotheism, or in anything 
that the clear light of science casts a doubt upon.”* 

We are told also that Christianity, unlike Judaism, 
bears “hope for the world, the picture of a time when jus¬ 
tice and equity and love will actually rule.” We are told that 
the vision of Jesus was “of a time when wrong and 
hatred would have vanished from the world, when all would 
love and be loved—when all other elements in society would 
be restrained or destroyed,” that this vision of Jesus, mind 
you, not of Isaiah, “gave to early Christianity its peculiar 
character,” and all this in sublime forgetfulness of the sec¬ 
ond chapter of Isaiah and the fourth chapter of Micah, 
where we are given Israel’s vision of peace and security “in 
the end of days,” (and yet, it is said, Israel has no forward 
look!), oblivious to the eleventh and sixty-fifth chapters of 
Isaiah where the vision is not only of man but even of the 
beasts of nature coming under the divine sway of the ideal 
fulfillment! 

What is that “something better” that Ethical Culture 
has to offer, and on which account Jews are to forsake Juda¬ 
ism for the betterment of humanity? Dr. Neumann tells 
us, and his are also the reasons given by Dr. Adler for his 
forsaking Judaism when at the age of twenty-two. 

In the first place, he claims Judaism is an ancestral 
faith; it is largely “a matter of accident,” the accident of 
being- born into and of a race the members of which share 


*W. M. Salter: “Ethical Culture: Its Message to Jew, Christian 
and Unbeliever.” 



i8 


a certain religious conviction and constitute a religious fel¬ 
lowship. This is all wrong says Dr. Neumann. “A man’s 
religion is something which he chooses, and his choice must 
represent a genuine conviction.’’ And so, the Ethical Cul¬ 
ture Society “has something better to offer,” for in it one 
can choose one’s religious convictions. Let us see how near 
to truth that is. 

Were the Ethical Society merely a sort of lecture 
forum, like our “Philadelphia Forum,” or a sort of Univer¬ 
sity Extension Society, we might conceive of freedom of 
choice, or of the lack of conscious direction to a choice. But 
the Ethical Society is more than that. Its leaders claim for 
it a religious conception, and we have it on the authority of 
no less a person than Dr. Adler that “we are a religious 
society, we bury the dead, we consecrate the marriage 
bond, we support a Sunday school.”t Instead of Baptism 
there is a naming ceremony. “There should be a special 
breviary for the sick, a Book of Consolation for the be¬ 
reaved, ... a book of direction for those who pass 
through the experience of sin, and a book of preparation 
for those who face the end.”t But apart from these forms, 
is not the child of parents who are members of the Ethical 
Culture Religion just as surely influenced and guided into 
the acceptance of the convictions of its parents, in the So¬ 
ciety’s Sunday School, as is the Jewish child guided in the 
Jewish Religious School, or the Christian child in the Chris¬ 
tian Sunday School? Does Dr. Neumann mean to say 
that the influence of the Sunday School over which he pre¬ 
sides or his representative is less potent, less conviction- 
affirming, less character^moulding than is the Religious 
School of the Jewish Congregation ? And if it is not less 
effective, then wherein is the difference between the un¬ 
chosen religion of one who came to it through the accident 
of birth in a loyally Jewish home and the “genuine convic¬ 
tion” of one who just as accidentally was born into the home 
of those, who, having chosen Ethical Culture, rear their chil¬ 
dren in their new conviction? The child chooses its faith 
as little in the latter case as in the former, and the.results 
of the training in the Sunday Schools of the Ethical So- 


fF. Adler: “The Religion of Duty,” p. 200. 

t F. Adler: “An Ethical Philosophy of Life,” p. 353. W. M. Salter: 
“Ethical Culture: Its Message to Jew, Christian and Unbeliever,” p. 37. 



19 

ciety is not at all-different from the results which we attain 
in our own Religious School. 

In one paragraph he refuses to have our “forbears fix 
for all time what we shall think about the ultimate prob¬ 
lems of life and destiny,” and in the next he agrees that Juda¬ 
ism is not a static orthodoxy, living in the past, refusing to 
go along with the times, but points out how marked Israel’s 
religious development has been through the ages. In the 
paragraph immediately following, however, he forgets again* 
about the evolution of Judaism and argues that we cannot 
take the ethical ideals of Judaism out of it and forget about 
the crude belief of earlier days, insisting, in a superior sort 
of manner, that we must take the oldest and the latest to¬ 
gether, the crude and the refined, the elementary and the 
advanced together in order to determine what Judaism to¬ 
day teaches. The logic of this is not evident, and the fair¬ 
ness of the argument is of doubtful nature. 

And again, he objects to Judaism because, as he puts 
it, “Duty because duty is right is not the Jewish teaching. 
Judaism says that the moral commandments are counter¬ 
feits unless they are stamped, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ ” I 
do not know at what age in life Dr. Neumann forsook Juda¬ 
ism, nor how much he learned about Judaism’s teachings. 
There are those who read his article, as there were undoubt¬ 
edly those in his audience who took his word for it. But 
what is the truth in the matter? Jewish literature, pro¬ 
phetic and rabbinic, Jewish teachers through the ages, re¬ 
fute emphatically the charge that virtue for virtue’s sake, 
duty for its own sake is alien to Jewish teaching. “Be not 
like servants who serve their master for the sake of reward; 
be rather like unto those who serve without the expectation 
of reward,” is sound Jewish teaching, and reveals a concep¬ 
tion of Duty which has nothing to equal it in the teachings 
of Church or Mosque or Ethical Culture Society. “Duty 
carries its own reward,” is another of the teachings of the 
Jew. But greater than any dictum or profession or teaching, 
is the history of the Jew which Neumann himself admits is a 
history of suffering for the sake of the ideal of righteous¬ 
ness, a history that portrays a passion for justice, a yearning 
for love. The life of the Jew reveals the meaning of ethical 
idealism, of moral fervor, of devotion to a standard of 
conduct such as no mere Ethical Society could implant, for 
the very reason that the Jew found his moral inspiration, 


20 


his ethical power in that very “Thus saith the Lord” which 
Neumann, and Martin, and Adler, and Sheldon, and Salter 
abhor and reject. 

They reject Judaism because the God idea is central in 
Judaism, and to Ethical Culture people “it cannot be such, 
because the idea of right is even more necessary.” That 
the God idea is central in Judaism, is and has been the Jew’s 
proud boast. But he knows not whereof he speaks, and 
his motive is to be seriously questioned, when in one para¬ 
graph he asserts that Judaism grew out of its early con¬ 
ception of God as a tribal deity, as an over-lord of a geo¬ 
graphical locality, into the conception of the Holy One 
who inhabits Eternity, who bids His children be holy be¬ 
cause He is holy, the exemplar of the highest ideals of Jus¬ 
tice and Love and Mercy, the God of the Universe, the Su¬ 
preme Being and Ideal of Moral Perfection, and in another 
paragraph we find that the reason for the Ethical Society’s 
eliminating God is that His commandments, as found 
in the Bible, contain the one which says, “Thou shalt not 
suffer a witch to live” and promises the Jews “the satisfac¬ 
tion of seeing the dogs lap the blood of Israel’s enemies.” 
I question the motive of ,a modern educated man who uses 
such arguments, for the reason that intelligent men know, 
the youngest college graduate knows, that the Bible is a com¬ 
posite record of the thoughts of many and diverse centuries, 
that the Bible is itself the finest proof of Israel’s moral 
growth, and that the very greatness of the prophets whom 
these men acclaim and eulogize so eloquently, is due to the 
fact that they denounced in unmeasured terms the crude 
practices of earlier days, and thundered their denunciation of 
these in the name of that very God who in an earlier age 
was thought to have promised “the Jews the satisfaction of 
seeing their dogs lap the blood of Israel’s enemies”! I 
question the sincerity and the earnestness of a man who ar¬ 
gues that everything in the Bible is accepted and taught by 
Modern Judaism, irrespective of the adaptations and 
changes of view necessitated by Israel’s moral progress! I 
question the honesty of motive of one who implies that “an 
eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth” is still the Jewish 
standard of Justice, who insinuates that Modern Judaism, 
and modern Jews, even you and I, advocate the burning of 
witches, or a belief in them, or that you and I looked for¬ 
ward, or our children are taught to look forward to the 


2 [ 


“satisfaction of seeing dogs lap the blood of Isarel’s ene¬ 
mies!” 

Ethical Culture, they tell us, enthrones, nay, that is too 
monarchial a term, exalts Duty and Right above God, and 
we are informed also that the belief in monotheism, in the 
Oneness of God, “is too pure, too empty of content to serve 
the purposes of a living faith.” But they realize that there 
must be some motivating force, something “from which the 
effort for perfection comes.” They tell us that there must be 
an “Ultimate Being,” a Being that is not the One, the Ehad 
of the prophets, but a “spiritual manifold,” a many-in-one, a 
Being composed of all of us, a Being that somehow is the 
source of perfection, but which, unlike Israel’s God, is not 
a personal, an immanent, a living, vital factor for us. 

If that satisfies men and women, I bow in reverence be¬ 
fore their conviction. But I maintain then that no ethical 
man has the right to gainsay the reasonableness of Israel’s 
ethical monotheism, or to question our sincerity and the gen¬ 
uineness of our religious convictions, or to distort Jewish 
history so as to make it appear devoid of that supreme 
ethical content which is implied in the prophetic, and there¬ 
fore Jewish, concept of Holiness as a rule of conduct, and 
of that constant Kiddush Hashshem, the bearing of testi¬ 
mony to the ideal of Holiness through life and living, and 
when necessary, through self-sacrifice and martyrdom, 
which has been the most characteristic feature of Judaism 
and of Jewish history. 

They deny God because of the external Authority im¬ 
plied, because the recognition of God as the Supreme Ethi¬ 
cal Being implies a recognition also of His authority, and, 
according to them “Thou shalt” and “Thus saith the Lord” 
are ethically not justifiable. So say they. Thus are we 
told, 


“even the ‘Ten Commandments,’ that are sometimes spoken of as 
an epitome of morality, have a theological coloring and a theological 
basis that free-thinking people cannot assent to. They are all in the 
name of the ‘Lord thy God.’ They are all his personal command¬ 
ments, . . . and are the orders of a superior to an inferior. . . . 
The morality of much in the Ten Commandments is pure and high, 
but the basis of it is no longer seriously held by thinking people.”* 

And yet, the same leader who said this, in speaking of 


*W. M. Salter: “The Bible in the Schools,” p. 102. 



22 


teaching children to realize the significance of duty, urges 
the importance of having a child do its duty without the 
exercise of the pressure of parental authority upon it, but 
in case the child prove obdurate, then, he informs us, 

“ ‘You shall’ and ‘You shall not’ are forms of speech that have 
still their legitimate place. Pains and penalties have their place. 
And they should be as regular as the recurring disobedience, if they 
are to have any educational value.” 

And, furthermore, says this gentleman, if a child asks about 
God and the facts of life, give him the answer of science 
when possible. But where the child “presses back for an 
ultimate explanation of things,” and 

“asks what does it all mean, and how does it all come to be, then 
does he show himself ready for that far flight, the flight to that 
unknown and unnameable power, which underlies and is the ex¬ 
planation of the whole world of phenomena, from which we in our 
deepest being come and to which we go. Very willingly would I 
admit to a child, when the admission is capable of being appreciated 
and appropriated by him, that there is more and other in the world 
than what we see, though what this Power or Agency is we can 
only dimly define to ourselves. Such an admission may not be enough 
for prayer, and our thought of the constancy of nature’s laws may 
make prayer out of place; but it is enough for reverence and for a 
reverent heeding of those laws or conditions of our own life in 
which the Supreme Power is most immediately and practically re¬ 
vealed to us. Religion in the sense of awe before that which our 
hands have not made—and which if we disregard no work of- our 
hands can prosper—has still its place.”* 


But if God is a fairy tale, the Aberglaube of popular 
theology, a phantasmagoria of unthinking minds, how then 
does this dim and indefinable, this unknown and unnameable 
Power or Agency which “is the explanation of the whole 
world of phenomena, from which we in our deepest being 
come and to which we go,” this Supreme Power which we 
are to revere, but to which it were senseless to pray, this 
Being which Dr. Adler says is so essential for reverence and 
without which the ethical life is unthinkable, just how is 
this notion superior to the Jewish conception of a God who 
teaches men through the divinity implanted within them; 
teaches them to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly; 
teaches them to be holy even as He is holy; teaches them 
to love their neighbors as themselves; teaches them to re- 


*W. M Salter: “Children’s Questions: How Shall We Answer 
Them ? p. 76. 



23 


spect and treasure life and to protect it; teaches them to be 
pure of heart, clean of hand, truthful in speech, honest of 
intention; teaches them to control their appetites and pas¬ 
sions, and to serve Him not merely through prayer, not 
merely through ritual and lip-profession, but through the 
loving, the inspired service, the uplifting service rendered 
to mankind ? 

They tell us of the futility of prayer. In a universe 
based on Law, immutable, unchangeable Law, prayer, 
we are told, can mean nothing. Time will not permit my 
entering the discussion of the ethical significance, of 
the inspirational value of the human heart conscious of its 
divine proximity, aware of its nearness to the 
Source, the Power, the Ultimate Being, God—call it what 
you will, of the human heart and soul rising as on wings in 
fervent, exalted utterance, or in silent devotion and sublime 
ecstasy, losing itself or becoming merged in the Infinite, or 
in speechless wonder, reverence and awe when standing in 
the midst of Nature’s majestic revelation, or when suffering 
as in the presence of death, or when experiencing that unut¬ 
terable, ineffable joy, which comes with parenthood. All 
these are forms of prayer. Ethical Culture, however, is con¬ 
cerned only with that religion which will appeal to the in¬ 
tellect, to the mind, forgetting that if man has a mind, so 
has he also a heart, and emotions, and instincts. And these 
latter are as important as, yea, more important, methinks, 
than the former. 

And, finally, another objection to Judaism made by Dr. 
Neumann and Professor Adler, an objection which it seems 
they do not find to Ethical Culture, is the idea that Israel 
considers itself a chosen people. To be sure, it is admitted 
by them that 

‘‘the thought of Israel as chosen has its noble meanings, too—for 
instance that Israel was selected to win from its sorrows the light 
whereby all earth might walk. It is also true that the Talmud allows 
a place in heaven for the pious of all faiths. But the thought is 
written large across every page of Judaism that Israel is singled 
out to lead. Out of Zion shall the word of the Lord go forth.” 

When it is claimed that Ethical Culture has “something 
better to offer” than does either Judaism or Christianity, 
when it is asserted that Ethical Culture alone has the “open 
sesame” for “getting into the unentered rooms of the moral 
life,” when one realizes how Israel has sacrificed for his 


24 


ideals and his vision, and when one considers that at last is 
mankind awaking to the true significance of Israel’s hoary 
teachings, and is exerting a mighty effort to attempt to apply 
them, Israel can afford to smile benignantly, contentedly, 
tolerantly, at this latest “objection.” For the struggle and 
the suffering have not been in vain. 

I have no doubt, dear friends, that for Dr. Adler and a 
few of his disciples the “spiritual manifold” has that sublime 
significance, that compelling urge to noble living which the 
Ehad, the One of Israel, has had for saints and martyrs 
throughout our history. I repeat what I said at the start, 
that I stand in reverent admiration before the record of 
Doctor Adler’s life and service. But as to the Ethical So¬ 
ciety, careful and critical study forces the conclusion that it 
is, to repeat Dr. Adler’s own words, the “Church of the 
unchurched,” and as to the Ethical Movement, that it is the 
Religion of the Godless. As to the claim that Ethical Cul¬ 
ture has “something better to offer” that has Judaism,— 
well, we might think of it in connection with the assertion 
ascribed to a German professor that the German translation 
of Shakespeare is superior to the original; it can be placed in 
the same class with the claim said to have been made by a 
certain American professor of Fiction who is innocent of 
a knowledge of Hebrew, that the King James translation of 
the Bible is superior to the Hebrew original. All of these 
claims have equal validity. 


Series XXXV. 


No. 14. 


“Baa Brianrm iluimtsm iff ailed?” 


A Discourse at Temple Kenesetpi Israel. 


By Rabbi Abraham J. Feldman. 

Philadelphia, February 5, 1922. 

It was Woodrow Wilson who gave the definition of a 
conservative: “A conservative,” he said, “is one who just 
sits and thinks, mostly sits.” And it is this type of conserva¬ 
tive that is most afraid of criticism. Criticism is disturbing 
to the man who chooses merely to sit. Criticism may cause 
him to think. No cause and no organization that is true to 
its purpose, no movement that is really a movement, that is 
not static, that grows, and wishes and desires to grow, re¬ 
jects criticism;—it welcomes criticism, in fact. 

Criticism is wholesome. Criticism is stimulating. 
Truly, “our antagonist is our helper.” And although critic¬ 
ism it at times painful and unpalatable, it is generally help¬ 
ful and beneficial in its results. 

But there are two kinds of criticism. There is the 
criticism that is born of hatred and malice, and its purpose is 
to injure and to slay; and there is another kind of criticism; 
it is the criticism of a friend, the criticism of one who so 
loves a cause, is so concerned about the cause being as worthy 
as possible that he will invoke criticism in order to improve 
it, in order to strengthen it, in order to have it true and 
worthy. It is painful to him, even as it is painful for the 
parent to inflict corporal punishment upon a child; but it is 
his great love that prompts him to do so. Malevolent critic¬ 
ism, the criticism of the foe and the enemy, we generally 
can well afford to ignore; but the criticism of a friend, we 
would do well to examine very carefully, to look into for 
our good, for the beneficial results that will come to us and 
to that in which we are interested. Truly speaks the proverb 
in our biblical book, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” 
They are for the good of the one criticized; and the reproof 
and rebuke of a friend have more love, more devotion, more 
value for us, than have the kisses of a foe. 

In the January issue of The Atlantic Monthly, there 
appears an article written by a Rabbi, Joel Blau, who is a 
graduate of the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati, and 






26 


therefore a Reform Rabbi. It is a brilliant essay, brilliantly 
written; it is epigrammatic; the style is fine; it is stimulat¬ 
ing; it is thought-provoking; and whether we agree with the 
author or disagree with him, it is worth reading. 

In a very clever and trenchant manner he lays at the 
door of the non-Jewish world the responsibility for its “mon- 
grelization” of the Jewish type, for the coerced warping and 
distortion of Jewish individuality, and for those unlovely 
traits ascribed to the Jew, traits which are inherently alien 
to the Jew, but which are attributable to an environment 
which, whatever may be said about it, is certainly not of his 
own making. 

But in addition to the external phases of Jewish life, 
our author finds upon turning his attention to the inner 
phase of Jewish life that the inner life of the Jew is appal¬ 
lingly decadent, and concludes that the political emancipa¬ 
tion that came tO' the Jew in the early part of the Nineteenth 
Century, the civic equality that came to the Jew when the 
Ghetto Walls fell away and the Jew was permitted to emerge 
from those walls into the European life and culture,—that 
this political emancipation, “so far as the Jew is concerned, 
has failed, and failed miserably.” For, 

“It took the Jew out of the Ghetto, but it put him nowhere in 
particular. It snatched him from a dingy milieu of unsplendid isola¬ 
tion, but it made him run amuck in an environment where his best 
instincts became thwarted and stunted. . . . Political emancipa¬ 

tion, indeed, tendered him the cold comforts, of civic equality; but it 
deprived him of the intimacy, the hominess, without which legal 
recognition is but a mockery.” 

And Reform Judaism, too, which, as we know it, was 
the result of that emancipation, failed, in that 

“it failed tO' solve the religious aspect of the Jewish problem even 
as emancipation failed to solve its political aspect. 

“Reform Judaism started out with the right diagnosis of the 
religious ills of Judaism; but it failed to provide the right cure. 
It realized that Judaism had to purge itself from backward ideas 
and backward practices; hence it sought to remove what was un¬ 
couth in the orthodox service; but in so doing it banished also what 
was original and distinctive, while it made no essential contribution 
to religious thought, and failed to kindle a new God-passion in the 
heart of the modern Jew. The new order brought no new ardor.” 

Indeed, all that can be said for Reform Judaism is, ac¬ 
cording to Blau, that it is— 

“A lifeless formalism that no one takes very seriously: her' 
and there a pathetic bit of folklore in connection with death—or 
marriage customs; a little ostentatious charity; all of this scarcely 


2 7 


relieved by the annual visit to the synagogue on the Day of Atone¬ 
ment. It is as if the spirit had long fled the husk. The old words 
fail to move. The old ideals fail to thrill. And there is no new 
Sinai from whose thundering top the God of Fathers might speak to 
his backsliding children.” 

And when he turns, in despair, to the leaders of Jewry, 
especially here in America, he discovers that— 

“Jewish leadership in America is in the hands of the wealthy 
laity; but this lay leadership is worldly in character, with no other 
aim and purpose than to conduct Judaism as a private eleemosynary 
institution. These rich leaders, indeed, are not wholly to blame; 
they simply lack the religious vision to recognize the Jewish problem 
as chiefly spiritual; to feel any consternation at the gradual attri¬ 
tion of all original Jewish values; and so, in their kind-heartedness, 
they turn to philanthropy and social service, as a sort of outlet for 
their better impulses; really as the highest possible expression of an 
ingrowing materialism.” 

This is the tragedy of Jewish life, of “a people that has 
lost its God,” and the cause of this tragedy is to be found in 
the “wrong contacts” forced upon the Jew, in the “promiscu¬ 
ous contacts” and “entangling alliances” with a non-Jewish 
environment. “The cure for all Jewish ills,” he points out, “is 
geography,” and if, to be saved,—“the Jew must be led back 
to the Discovery of the Jewish Soul,” then must there be “a 
gradual repatriation of the Jew in Palestine.” 

This is the burden of his criticism, and this his solution. 
It is the criticism of a friend. It is distinctly ye//-criticism. 
It is written not with glee, but with a bleeding heart. I be¬ 
lieve it is written not because the author delights in finding 
fault, but because to his view, judged in the light of his own 
experiences, these conditions exist; and he criticises 
in this way because he wants a greater and finer and truer 
Judaism to exist than the one he finds at present. There is 
much that it true in his criticism—true and justified. But 
there is more that is only half-true, and a good bit that is 
not true and not justified in his criticism. All too frequently 
in the course of his essay we find upon careful examination 
that he is led astray by his own brilliancy, that he, not 
unlike other men given to epigrammatic writing, is 
led astray by his own epigrams, clever and scintilating 
though they are, and one is led to suspect that our author 
in despite his cleverness does not, after all, see clearly but 
as through a glass, dimly. 

Granting that political emancipation has not realized 
for us all that we hoped it would bring to us; granting that 
we did not obtain all the civic equality and all the liberty, all 


28 


the freedom and all the fraternity, all the fairness and justice 
of treatment, all the opportunities for which we looked in the 
early days of the Nineteenth Century, when this liberating, 
emancipating movement swept the earth and incidentally 
benefited the Jew; granting that not all we hoped for, not 
all we foresaw coming to us in those early days of enthusi¬ 
asm, came to be—granting this much, we still maintain that 
this Rabbi’s indictment is unproven and somewhat erratic. 
For certainly political emancipation for the Jew is not a 
“miserable failure,” as he puts it, because when we examine 
carefully we find that Jewish life since the days of the emanci¬ 
pation has been more vigorous, more active, more vital than it 
has ever been in the long martyrdom of our people. We find, 
when we examine the history of the Jew during the last cen¬ 
tury, that the Jew has been a better Jew, and, as a man, he has 
been a better man and a more useful citizen than he has been 
in the ages of persecution. And when we consider the re¬ 
markable progress that has been made by the Jew in a little 
over one century, when we appraise fully the value to himself 
and to 1 the world of the Jew’s participation in every walk of 
life, in every sphere of activity since emancipation; when 
we consider all these we cannot help but marvel at the prog¬ 
ress and at the achievement of the “failure” ! 

Rabbi Blau longs for the “hominess,” the warmth of 
the Ghetto life. I fear that he has fallen into the error that 
all of us fall into when we think of the past. We idealize 
the past unduly, I fear, and bathe it in the mellowed glow of 
age, and judge it by the quaintness which is the quaintness 
of antiquity. The Today is too often over-criticized and its 
achievements • underestimated. And merely , to say in this 
instance, as Rabbi Blau says, that the emancipation move¬ 
ment has been a “miserable failure,” view it morbidly and 
make an ex-cathedra declaration of its failure without really 
adducing any proof, makes it neither “miserable” nor a 
“failure.” 

Surely, Emancipation for the Jew has not been a fail¬ 
ure in the sense that it took the Jew out of the Ghetto Walls; 
away from its degradation, from that very “unsplendid 
isolation” of which he speaks. Surely, he does not long for 
the “good old days” of the Ghetto, with its civic disabilities, 
its political and educational discriminations, its commercial 
inhibitions, its crushing degradations, the humiliating ostra¬ 
cism and segregation of those unblessed days! 

Casting off for a moment the morbid pall which he 


29 


casts about the picture he tries to draw, it appears that the 
removal of the Jew from the Ghetto was a Providential 
blessing, and no one who views Jewish life fairly, and 
judges rightfully, no one who is not ascetically minded or 
who judges the Jew not merely as a theologic phenomenon, 
but who sees the Jew as a man, as a human being that 
thinks and feels and is desirous of contributing to the life 
about him, no one who realizes what the Jew has done; for 
the world, especially during this last century, will look upon 
the years since the Emancipation as having been a “miserable 
failure,” or will look back longingly to the “hominess” and 
the warmth of the unblessed days of the filth and degrada¬ 
tion of the Ghetto ! 

Surely the Jew has fared better, Jewishly and spirit¬ 
ually, in the free atmosphere of modern democracy than 
in the stifling, fetid environment into which he was forced 
by medieval autocracy; and if not all our hopes have been 
realized, if complete emancipation has not come to us yet, 
we might turn profitably to the Bible and find the narrative 
of the enslaved generation that broke away from Egyptian 
slavery and marched towards Freedom. Their life was not 
as complex as ours is, their environment had not so many 
conflcting elements as ours has, yet even they of the genera¬ 
tion of the desert, going on a march that should have taken 
but a short while, had to go through trial and tribulation 
during a period of forty years, before they could come into 
the Land of Promise. Remember, that it is but a genera¬ 
tion or two since Emancipation came to the Jew. We are 
marching forward, and we are slowly attaining greater 
freedom and greater equality, and greater recognition. 

But even greater, according to Blau, is the failure of 
Reform Judaism, which came in the w T ake of that political 
emancipation. 

He points out that despite the existence of Reform 
Judaism for almost a century, it has not succeeded in 
obliterating materialism from Jewish life; that despite 
Reform Judaism there is a lack of mysticism, the want of 
a transforming conception of God and of faith, and that 
Reform Judaism in itself is “coldly and correctly formal, 
philistine, respectable,” that it is “a lifeless formalism that 
no one takes very seriously.” 

Frankly, it is very surprising to find this Reform Rabbi 
making these statements unless one ascribes them again to 
the lure of the epigram. Were it said by someone else; were 


30 


it said by one who did not know the history and the hopes 
of Reform Judaism; were it said by anyone who had not 
studied it heretofore or was unsympathetic to it, I would 
say that such a one was suffering from what I may par¬ 
donably call some sort of “intellectual measles.” But here is 
a friendly criticism, and it is only, I believe, the ambitions 
of a loving heart, the ambitions to see the highest ideals 
of Reform Judaism realized that make him speak as he 
does and look upon Reform Judaism and its achievement 
through the gloomy glasses which he uses. 

What is Reform Judaism? It is nothing new; and while, 
in its modern organized expression as a definitive, positive 
movement, it is recent, the idea of reform in Judaism is 
over twenty-six hundred years old. We find the beginnings 
of conscious reform in Judaism with the Book of Deu¬ 
teronomy, when that book was found, according to the 
account in the Book of Kings, about seven hundred years 
before the present era. There we find the beginnings of 
reform in Judaism, and like a golden thread we can trace 
the growth and development of Reform Judaism through 
all of the subsequent ages of Jewish history. 

There has always been a struggle in Judaism between 
liberalism and rationalism, on the one hand, and tradition¬ 
alism on the other. Traditionalism, not tradition; I dis¬ 
tinguish between the two. Reform was always deeply 
rooted in the Jewish tradition, and it claimed the right to 
interpret Jewish tradition in the light and knowledge and 
experience of successive generations. But it was ever 
opposed to Traditionalism, to a worship of tradition merely 
because it was of the past, and the struggle between ration¬ 
alism or liberalism or reform—call it what you will—and 
Traditionalism continued through the ages of Jewish history. 
And we note this remarkable fact: that whenever there was 
liberty, whenever there was freedom given to the Jew, 
whenever there was civic and political opportunity given 
to the Jew, liberalism gained the upper hand; but no sooner 
were there persecution and oppression, than the Jew found 
it necessary as a means of self-defense to draw himself into 
his own seclusion, there to remain until the dawn of a 
brighter day, and at such times Traditionalism gained the up¬ 
per hand. And it is quite natural for one who is persecuted 
and hounded, when the present is dark and the future holds 
out no hope, to turn to the past, there to try to find hope 
and consolation and strength and cheer. And so, whenever 


3i 


persecution came to the Jew he turned to the past, he turned 
to the literature of the past and the traditions of the past 
and the ritual of the past—to the words, authorities and 
legislation of the past—and worshiped them, literally wor¬ 
shiped them; because it was the only consolation his life had, 
and such light as it contained, was all the light that came 
into his life. And when we realize that Jewish history had 
more persecution than freedom, we can readily understand 
why Traditionalism gained so tremendous a hold. 

But reform was reborn, and came in upon the wave 
of liberty, of freedom and equality, which swept over 
Europe at the end of the Eighteenth and at the beginning 
of the Nineteenth Centuries, after the American and the 
French Revolutions. The Ghetto walls fell, and the Jew, 
who was immured in those walls for centuries, who was 
not permitted to participate in the life around him, stepped 
out. He was eager, to bathe spiritually in the sunshine of 
European culture. Dazed and overwhelmed^ he wanted to ab¬ 
sorb that culture, to make it his very own. He wanted to be 
the equal of the others; and he set out to become that unpre¬ 
pared. Orthodox Judaism remained—orthodox. It con¬ 
tinued rigid, fixed, unbending. It was satisfied that the 
many recognized its authority. With the others it was 
unconcerned. It was content with calling them way¬ 
ward, and continued tO' concern itself with She’elotk 
u’Te’shuboth, with ritual details, with hypothetical problems 
of sacerdotalism and sacrifices, with pots and with 
pans, sinfully ignoring the youth in particular standing at 
the crossroads, refusing to go out to the youth and speak 
to it the life-giving word, the strengthening word, refusing 
to reinterpret tradition in the light of the thoughts, the 
hopes, the aspirations, yea, in terms of the world-view of 
a new age and a new era. Traditionalism remained un¬ 
yielding; it ignored the youth; for Orthodoxy remains true 
to itself whether it be Jewish Orthodoxy or any other kind 
of Orthodoxy. It always worships exclusively at the shrines 
of the Past, ever refusing to minister at the altars of the 
Future. 

It is painful to me, friends, to say this. I come from an 
orthodox environment, and until my later adolescent years I 
was a convinced orthodox Jew. I have a great sympathy 
for, and I think I have an understanding of orthodox Juda¬ 
ism. I love that which is beautiful, that which is wholesome, 
yes, especially that which is sincere and truly Jewish and 


32 


devout in Orthodoxy, And there is, oh, so much of that 
in Orthodoxy! I am not looking for a quarrel, nor am I try¬ 
ing unjustly to criticize. But the truth should be spoken, 
and even if it hurts it must be spoken, especially when we 
find not justly nor fairly judged and caricatured the move¬ 
ment which is of youth, the movement which turns eagerly 
and hopefully to the future and so promisingly leads the 
hosts of modern Israel unto a brighter day, unto' a finer and 
greater day. 

Young Jewry sought light and guidance in the early 
days of Reform. Traditionalism offered none. What was 
the result? Why, there was a veritable epidemic of apos¬ 
tasy; hundreds and hundreds of our young people left the 
fold and embraced Christianity; and as many forsook the 
House of Israel, until a handful in Israel stepped into the 
breach determined that young Israel be saved for Judaism, 
determined to save Judaism itself. They realized that Juda¬ 
ism coiild be saved, and, more, the youth of Israel could be 
saved for Judaism if it be recognized that in the new day we 
must speak a new language, we must have new expressions, 
must adapt what we can and cast away what we can no 
longer use and wherever necessary create the new in replace¬ 
ment of the discarded old. 

That was the beginning of the modern Reform Move¬ 
ment. It came, not as the enemies of Reform frequently 
say, to destroy Judaism. It came to save Judaism; to re¬ 
generate it, to save the Jewish youth for Judaism. It came 
to build, not to destroy; to construct, not to tear down. And 
it interpreted Judaism in terms of life rather than in terms 
of customs and observances and ceremonies. They took out 
of the Talmud all that could be of value in the 
new day and age, and found renewed inspiration in the pro¬ 
phetic idealism of the Bible which Orthodoxy neglected, 
and gave an ethical rather than ritualistic emphasis to 
Jewish life. They turned to the ritual, for the ritual em¬ 
bodies principles of faith; and they eliminated from it all 
that was no longer a part of their faith, all that was anti¬ 
quated and meaningless and void, all that had no longer any 
significance. They gave woman a position of dignity 
in Jewish life. And may I be permitted to say, that if Re¬ 
form Judaism had done nothing else but this, had 
effected no other change than this,—the liberation of the 
Jewish woman in the life of the Jew, Reform Judaism 
could not be called an utter failure! It has given the 


33 


-Jewish woman a position of dignity not only in the home—• 
a position which she always occupied there—but a position 
of dignity also in the Synagogue. It eliminated customs 
that had no significance and that could not be enforced any 
more. It re-introduced the vernacular into the Service, and 
the sermon in the vernacular, and enforced decorum during 
Divine Services. 

“Orthodoxy overcame legalism by means of an instinc¬ 
tive piety, Reform became coldly and correctly formal.” 
There is warmth in Orthodoxy, there is philistinism, cold 
formalism in Reform, such is the cry of this Rabbi. I could 
take hiii* into Jewish homes where Reform Judaism is the 
guiding inspiration of life and introduce him to a religious 
warmth, to a radiant glow of spirituality, to a Jewish “homi¬ 
ness” and “intimacy” that would expand the heart of the 
most confirmed mystic. And I could, also, take him into a 
countless number of so-called Orthodox homes and intro¬ 
duce him to a coldness, to a religious formalism, to a philis¬ 
tinism, to a Godlessness that would chill the enthusiasm 
of the most hopeful and most ardent exponent of that 
“dingy milieu of unsplendid isolation” which the old Ghetto 
was in the “good, old days,” before Emancipation and 
before Reform. 

It has been said that Reform Judaism is ignorant Juda¬ 
ism. It is interesting to note that more creative scholar- 
liness has resulted under the inspiration of Reform, more 
constructive scholarly work has been done and a better and 
more thorough presentation of Judaism has been made as a 
result of the stimulus that came with Reform, presentations 
that have placed the Jew in a truer light before the world, 
than ever before in Jewish history. This we say of the 
scholars and leaders. As to the rank and file, Jewish ignor¬ 
ance abounds in both camps. We admit that, with sorrow. 
But this ignorance cannot be ascribed to Reform Judaism, 
for a stupendous Jewish ignorance prevails in circles never 
reached by Reform, and where it is pretty thoroughly un¬ 
known. 

Rabbi Blau speaks disparagingly of what he calls 
philanthropic, eleemosynary Judaism, and implies that there 
is something unworthy, un-Jewish in philanthropy’s identifi¬ 
cation with Judaism. And the question occurs: Since when 
has it become unJewish to clothe the naked, to feed the 
hungry, to provide shelter for the homeless, to stretch out 
a helping hand to the helpless, or to bring comfort and 


34 


solace to the downtrodden and afflicted? Since when has 
the practice of Tsedakah become irreligious or contrary to 
the spirit of the Jew, and since when have social service 
and abundant philanthropy come to constitute a confession 
of religious failure on the part of the Jew? 

Reform Judaism had its greatest growth here in 
America. And when we think of the consecrated lives and 
services of the leaders of Reform, of men like Isaac M. Wise 
and David Einhorn, when we examine the results of their 
services, see their achievements, and realize what their lives 
have meant to the Jew in America religiously, and compare 
their lives and services with those of other leaders* of their 
day and generation, methinks we have no reason to think of 
Reform Judaism as a failure. 

Look at the religious* instruction in the Religious 
Schools of Reform Judaism. Faulty? Yes, very faulty, 
and there was more fault to be found years ago than there 
is today. And yet, look at the inspiration that is there 
imparted to the youth, to the generation of the future; look 
at the types of Jewish manhood and Jewish womanhood 
which the modern schools of Reform Judaism are turning 
out; look at them, and compare them with the product 
of other schools of Judaism and judge whether Jewishly, 
ethically, Reform Judaism has failed. Look at the con¬ 
stantly growing numbers of Reform Synagogues. Look 
at the banding together of the synagogues of America, the 
Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the United 
Synagogues, which is the union of the conservative congre¬ 
gations, all banded together, the better to serve the common 
cause. I mention this last in this connection, because 
some of the so-called “conservative” synagogues are more 
radical even in their conservatism now, and have travelled a 
greater distance away from Orthodoxy than were and did 
the early reformers in their days. 

Look at the Hebrew Union College and think of the 
service it rendered to the cause of the Jew. Consider that 
it is no small factor for Jewry to have over two hundred 
graduates of that institution standing in the Jewish pulpits 
of this country, preaching in the vernacular, and interpret¬ 
ing the teachings and message of the Jew to the men 
and women and children of today, exhorting and urging 
Jews to earnest and selfless and zealous service of God and 
man. It is no small matter for the Jew and the world to have 
the prophetic teachings interpreted before countless multi- 


35 


tudes by the descendants of the prophets, in the language of 
today. Look at the lives of some of the graduates of the 
Hebrew Union College, each serving in his community and 
bringing inspiration to countless numbers, and actually in¬ 
fluencing, molding life and character. Look at our women’s 
organizations, identified with the religious life of the Jew. 
Look at the constantly increasing number of young people’s 
organizations in the Reform Congregations of Amer¬ 
ica. Compare all of these with conditions in Judaism in 
the generation that preceded the coming of modern Reform; 
compare the present religious situation and religious life of 
the avowedly Reform Jews with the situation that you will 
find in the religious life of avowedly Orthodox circles and 
then answer the question: Has Reform Judaism failed? 

I admit that there is much that is yet wanting in Re¬ 
form Judaism in America, that we have not attained unto 
perfection. But true reform, reform that is dynamic, that 
is not static, never stops to say “Now we have achieved our 
aim.” Rooted in the hallowed past it looks to the future, 
and urges men to arise and scale the moral heights until we 
approach'close unto that pinnacle which is ever before us. 
but which completely we shall never possess. Re¬ 
form is an unending, unceasing process. And so if we 
find imperfection in Reform as we do; if we find material¬ 
ism in the ranks of Reform Jews—and we do; if we 
find a lack of mysticism, and a want of GoD-consciousness 
as we do, let us remember that these are not characteristics 
of Reform or of Orthodox Jewry, but that the Jew, what¬ 
ever his theology, is only reflecting his environment, 
the spirit of the times, and the tendency of the age; nor 
should we be unmindful of the fact when some of us turn 
longingly backward and eulogize the “hominess,” the in¬ 
herent piety of the Ghetto of old, as Rabbi Blau does, and 
miss these in present-day life, that in the dimness of re¬ 
ceding generations and ages we lose sight of all the ma¬ 
terialism, all the negative conditions that have dis¬ 
appeared from our view but which, when we read the lit¬ 
erature of the past, we find existed even then, and per¬ 
haps even to a greater extent than today. Every genera¬ 
tion looks back to the “good old days,” but if there ever were 
“good old days” we would never be where we are. If the 
best is always past—our generation would indeed be a sorry 
generation. We have progressed despite the “good old days.” 


36 


There has been progress, marked progress, because the 
“good old days” are never behind us, they are always ahead 
O'f us. 

Rabbi Blau sees the faults and weaknesses of Reform 
Judaism, and offers a geographical solution — the 
Jew’s repatriation in Palestine. I, too, friends, believe in 
the possibilities of a Jewish Palestine as a source of Jewish 
inspiration and strength; but with all of my enthusiasm, with 
all the enthusiasm that any partisan may have for the hope 
of a Jewishly restored Palestine, it is not to be thought that 
the bulk of Jewry, even with such a Palestine, 
will ever be anywhere but outside of it. There will still 
remain the Diaspora, the scattered communities of Israel; 
and they will have to solve their problems, not in the light 
of conditions in Palestine, but in the light of conditions 
which they will confront in their immediate respective en¬ 
vironments. We dare not put all our hopes upon Palestine, 
and even there, if evidences are not misleading, the settlers 
will ere long have to> face the same religious problems which 
Reform Judaism has faced and tried to solve. To say that 
Judaism’s hope and solution is geographical is to misunder¬ 
stand Judaism. Judaism is not geographical; Juda¬ 
ism is of the soul; and wherever there is a Jewish heart 
beating, wherever there are Jews coming in contact and 
association with their fellow men, there we will find the same 
practical problems for Judaism to solve. 

We need more mysticism, we need more piety, more 
warmth, more saintliness in Jewish life, of course. These 
will come. We are working toward these. We are pray¬ 
ing for these and are training our children in the spirit and 
by the light of that hope. 

Reform has not failed, cannot fail,—because it is fac¬ 
ing in the right direction, looking toward the future. And 
Reform Judaism will not fail, if we, who profess it, continue 
to serve as we have served in the past, as we are trying to 
serve in the present,—in the spirit of Abraham Geiger, sage 
and master spirit of Reform Judaism, who said: “In der 
Vergangenheit forschen, in der Gegenwart leben, fuer die 
Zukunft bauen” : —“Search in the past, live in the present, 
and build for the future.” 


Series XXXV. 


No. 17. 


3a % Morlfc (grunting Horae? 


A Discourse at Temple Keneseth Israel. 


By Rabbi Abraham J. Feldman. 


Philadelphia, February 26, 1922. 


One cannot pick up a newspaper these days without 
finding recorded in itsi columns the sigh of those who 
grieve over the sad plight of humanity, without finding 
graphically sketched the outlines of the doom awaiting so¬ 
ciety. One cannot turn to any of the serious periodicals 
without having thrust upon his attention forecasts of the 
certain ruin and decay which civilization is rushing to 
encounter. Hardly a pulpit in the land but its occupant 
thunders against the vice and the immorality, the dishon¬ 
esty and the cupidity, the evil and the sinfulness of the day. 
And the cumulative effect of all these denunciations is the 
impression that there is little that is good and pure, not 
much that is true and wholesome left in modern society. 

And at first blush, this impression seems to be justi¬ 
fied and correct. For there certainly is a disheartening 
amount of imperfections. There are murders committed 
constantly. There is infidelity. There is vice and crime 
of every kind on every hand. There is treachery. There 
is a laxity in morals, there are license and looseness, false¬ 
hood and vileness in all human relations, and in all social 
spheres. Here the husband slays his wife, there the wife 
shoots her husband. There a mother forsakes husband and 
children to elope with a husband and father. Elsewhere i$ 
displayed the contaminating sight of husband accusing wife 
of infidelity and of the wife proving the husband to be 
infinitely more rotten and lecherous and beastly. Here we 
find one fleecing and bleeding the widow and the orphan of 






3 « 


the savings of a lifetime or of the insurance of the deceased 
husband and father, there we behold the graft and the dis¬ 
honesty of law-maker and law-enforcer. 

Capital and labor are at each other’s throats constantly. 
There are walk-outs and lock-outs, starvation wages and 
unemployment. Greed and selfishness, dishonesty and dou¬ 
ble-dealing, promises recklessly made and just as care¬ 
lessly broken, the resulting discontent and distrust, the 
shameful extravagance of the few, the tragic want of the 
many, the satiety of some, the ennui of those who have 
tasted too much either of joys and luxuries or of griefs and 
privations. We rant about democracy and the blessings 
of liberty in America, and deny suffrage and protection of 
life and limb to citizens of America. We speak of patriot¬ 
ism in one breath and in the next we ask to be paid for 
that same patriotism. Everywhere—injustice, everywhere— 
corruption, everywhere—dishonesty, everywhere:—sin, and 
despair, and tragedy. Broken homes, broken lives, shattered 
hopes, ideals crushed under the weight of disillusionment, 
faith fleeting—a sad, sad state of affairs, wherever we turn 
our gaze. 

“Right forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the 
throne.” This seems to be the experience of man, and 
under its crushing weight, pessimism plays its wretched 
discords upon the snapping strings of human hearts. 

These are only some of the negative manifestations 
of life. Countless others come tO' mind even while we 
speak. And man reacts to them. And reactions vary with 
different men. 

A study of such reactions enables us to group them 
under four classifications. 

There is first the type of man whose reactions lead 
him into the camp of the pessimists, into the company of 
the cynics. The theory of the pessimist is rather well sum¬ 
marized in the Biblical book of Koheleth or Ecclesiastes. 

“What profit hath man of all his labor wherein he laboreth un¬ 
der the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation 
cometh; and the earth abideth forever. The sun rises and the sun 


39 


sets, and to his rising place he returneth. The wind goeth toward 
the south, and turneth about unto the north; it turneth about con¬ 
tinually in its circuit, and returneth again to its circuits. All the 
rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To) the place whither 
the streams flow, from there they flow back again. All things toil 
to weariness beyond human utterance. That which hath been is 
that which shall be; and what has happened is that which shall hap¬ 
pen, so that there is nothing new under the sun. . . I have seen 

all the works that are done under the sun ; and, behold, all is vanity 
and a striving after wind.” 

And just as we behold a monotony in nature, constant 
repetition, an endless circle, aimless and endless and unrea¬ 
soning, so, too, does the pessimist find human life to be. 
His is the theory that life is aimless, purposeless, without 
goal. It is a dreary monotony, it is a vicious circle, it is 
empty, hollow, valueless. Progress is a meaningless term, 
growth is a lie, newness is a misconception. And, although 
Koheleth is, as the late Professor Jastrow has so splendidly 
pointed out, a gentle cynic, yet he, too, in a moment of bit¬ 
terness, comes to the conclusion to which the pessimists of 
all ages and climes have come: “I hate life”; it is not worth 
while. Koheleth is too gentle and too inconsistent to wel¬ 
come death, but suicide is the only logical escape from the 
horrors and depression of life. 

This group believes also that man is helpless to' change 
conditions, and all efforts to improve and to reform, to 
advance from the past, to hope for a brighter future, are 
all vain and a chasing after the wind, for “who can make 
that straight, which God hath made crooked?” 

They who accept this counsel and philosophy see only 
one side of life, view but one aspect of it, though they 
claim to see clearly and at times speak plausibly. There 
can be no negative where no positive exists, and it is just 
the union of positive and negative that makes the whole of 
life. The facts of life are but summations of so many con¬ 
trasts. In electricity there is complete circuit possible 
except through the co-operation of the positive and the 
negative. Of the two poles of a magnet, the one attracts, 
the other repels. The more energy the blacksmith puts 
forth in his work, the stronger his muscles become. They 


40 


do not realize when they complain of an excess of rain over 
sunshine that the two stand in the relation of cause and effect 
to each other. And so to view the shadows and to pro¬ 
claim that all is shadow is a confession of failure to think 
and to reason. For where the shadow is, there must be 
light, where there is no light there are no shadows, and 
“where there is much light the shadows are deepest.” 

They claim that life is aimless and hopeless and empty. 
They claim that life is wicked and cruel and painful. They 
assert that— 

“-the struggle naught availeth, 

The labor and the wounds are vain, 

The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 

And as things have been, they remain.” 

But that is not true. The record of human life tells a dif¬ 
ferent tale. It is a glorious record, a fascinating tale. It 
is captivating as we view it in retrospect, it is reassuring 
as we examine it in the light of our contemporary experi¬ 
ence. It lifts us in vision and hope and faith not so that 
we might perceive the end of life, for faith and hope know 
neither end nor finality—but rather that ours may be 
the stimulus and the joy that come with the knowledge 
that man can achieve, that man does progress, that man is 
indeed shntoph I’ma’aseh be’reshith, a co-worker of God, 
and a contributor to the unfolding processes of the uni¬ 
verse, in its physical aspects, as in its spiritual glories, in its 
mechanical as in its human phases! 

There are two other groups reacting to the negative 1 
manifestations of life, and these consist of—if I may be 
permitted to use colloquial designations—the “Blues” and 
the “Reds.” 

They whom I designate the “Blues” are a. group of 
men and women who are not pessimists. But neither are 
they optimists. They are people whose mental vision is 
impaired through a sort of mental strabismus, unable to 



4i 


see straight nor yet clearly. They are in addition spiritually 
near-sighted. They are concerned not with the past pri¬ 
marily, although they are loath to part company with it, 
eager to live in it, yearning to preserve it intact. They are 
people who would immerse the ideas and manners and 
thoughts, and habits of life of what they think was the 
past in a fountain of eternal youth, if they could, so as to 
preserve these unchangeable, and they invoke the dogma of 
the inabrogability of the dicta and standards of the past that 
they might perform the miracle of its preservation. And 
indeed, nothing short of a miracle could preserve the past 
as they would have it. 

Being afflicted with mental strabismus and spiritual 
myopia they view all life through the dark, smoky lenses of 
disapproval. Nothing satisfies them nor pleases them. 
Koheleth sought refuge from the depressing aimlessness of 
life in the joy and happiness of living which he says are 
God-given, given to man to be used and enjoyed. These 
people object to joy and happiness on theologic grounds, 
and would stem the undoubtedly existing evil and sin 
in the world through legislative enactments and legal inhi¬ 
bitions of all that which through abuse may in the remotest 
degree lead to sin and corruption and decay. 

These are offset by the so-called “Reds” or rabid radi¬ 
cals, who, dissatisfied with things as they are, and impatient 
with the slow process of evolution, unmindful of the adjust¬ 
ments and adaptations necessitated by changes of human in¬ 
stitutions and forms of government and organization, 
posit theories which are meant to- usher in the millenium, 
and are scathing and venomous in their impatience at so¬ 
ciety’s slow response. And whilst the “Blues” love to turn to 
the mythical and legendary “good old days” for inspiration, 
these, the “Reds,” reject the past on the ground that it did 
not function according to future specifications, and vocifer¬ 
ously proclaim that nothing that was—was good, nothing 
that is—is good, nor can anything that is as yet to be— 


42 


be good, unless it comes to be in accordance with the par¬ 
ticular prescription written by the particular group or sect 
in question. 

And there is yet another group of people reacting to 
the evils of the day. It is composed of men and women 
who cherish the past for its lessons to the present, who 
revere the past for the lives it contained and its achieve¬ 
ments, who study the past for its inspiration and encourage¬ 
ment, for the strength that it gives them to live and to 
struggle for the dawn of the brighter, greater day, that is 
yet to come. 

They, too, see the wrong that prevails. They are 
keenly sensitive to' all that is unmoral and unjust, to all that 
is evil and decadent, to all that is false and dishonest, to all 
that is negative in life, to all that is subversive of the greater 
and finer aspirations and hopes of the greatest minds and 
seers and prophets and martyrs of the ages. They regret 
and lament over these manifestations. Their hearts bleed, 
their resentment is aroused, and they, too, by voice and 
deed and example strive to reduce the evil 'and encourage 
the good. 

They are found on the firing line among the moral, 
positive forces of society. But unlike the “Blues”—they do 
not make a fetish of the past, and unlike the “Reds”—they 
see the danger to the cause of man when revolution is in¬ 
voked, where evolution is surely functioning, and unlike the 
pessimist they despair not of the world, and consciously 
proclaim not the doom of the world, not its growing de¬ 
terioration, not its inglorious end—but an ever greater, 
better, finer world than ever yet there was. To their view 
the world is not growing worse—but ever better, not less 
moral—but more moral, and they view the future ever 
more and more hopefully and cheerfully. 

And their attitude is justified in the light of History. 
For they view History not as Voltaire did, as “little else 
than a picture of human crimes and misfortunes,” but as 
Tennyson viewed it, as 


43 


“The great world’s altar-steps 
That slope thro’ darkness up to God.” 

They do not deny the crimes and misfortunes. They 
but insist that the very fact that misfortune and crime are 
so loudly heralded is an indication that these constitute not 
the rule but the exception. The world notices the person who 
steals the loaf of bread, the newspapers publish it far and 
wide, but we remain ignorant of the hundreds and thou¬ 
sands who choose to starve to death rather than touch 
aught that is not recognized by society and convention to 
be legally and rightfully theirs. We hear all about the 
great number of divorces which occur; nothing is said about 
the millions and millions of happy homes and blessed fire¬ 
sides, yea nothing at all about the thousands of firesides 
whence peace and agreement and love have flown, but which 
are yet preserved at a cost never to be computed so that 
children may grow up under the joint protection of both 
parents. At well-nigh every death bed, one may hear a 
cheering tale. For wretched indeed is that life that leaves 
behind not one grateful thought, not one other person who 
can tell of deeds of kindness, of mercy and consideration, 
that leaves not behind any recollections of a cheering word 
spoken in the hour of gloom, of a friendly act performed in 
the moment of need, of an encouraging word and strength¬ 
ening look. There is no life so miserable, but it had its re¬ 
deeming phases, there is no person so sinful, but that he had 
his saintly moments. 

We are shocked at the evidences of vulgarity and 
profanity of speech and attitude found in the world today. 
One need but turn to the writings of Richardson or Field¬ 
ing or Smollett, to realize how we have gone up on the 
ladder of refinement since the days when ladies in court 
and gentlemen of the nobility in ordinary mutual conversa¬ 
tion used a speech that for obscenity and vulgarity and pro¬ 
fanity today could be found nowhere except, perhaps, in the 
very lowest stages of moral decay and degradation. 


44 


“Progress is,” indeed, “the law of life.” We have, but 
to examine and think—and we are astonished at the rev¬ 
elation. 

Just think of it—within the memory of living men, 
some of them are in this congregation today, there occurred 
the invention of electric lights and the invention and devel¬ 
opment of the telephone and the telegraph, the automobile 
and the aeroplane, the wireless telegraph and the radio tele¬ 
phone, the sewing machine, the moving picture, the phono¬ 
graph. Two centuries ago, the world, knew nothing of 
steam or steamboats, of railways and locomotives; three 
hundred years ago the world was ignorant of newspapers 
and postoffices ; five hundred years ago printing was un¬ 
known; a thousand years ago there was no compass; two 
thousand years ago paper was as yet unknown. 

When we think that our Electoral College is a rem¬ 
nant of the days, less than one hundred and fifty years ago, 
when the result of an election in the thirteen neighboring 
States was unknown for several months, and think of the 
air-mail-service of today, of the wireless and the cable and 
the telegraph and telephone ; when we compare the modern 
fast trans-oceanic liners with the Mayflower of the Pilgrims, 
when we think of the length of time it took the Pilgrims 
to reach this land, and know of the few days and hours in 
which we cross the ocean today, we get some vague concep¬ 
tion of the material progress made by mankind. We realize 
then that distance for us is well-nigh annihilated, that print¬ 
ing and electricity, steam and oil and gasoline, have made 
of the entire world a neighborhood, that photography has 
made world-trotters of all of us, and that the humblest of 
us today enjoys comforts and luxuries which the great and 
mighty of the earth, but a short while ago, dreamed not of. 

Nor has the progress been merely material. A time 
there was when only the priests and monks could read and 
write. Today illiteracy is a social disgrace and even in 
Russia, the most illiterate of modern lands, illiteracy during 
the Bolshevik regime is rapidly decreasing. The world is 


45 


becoming educated as it has never been educated before. A 
time there was when a grammar school education was an 
achievement. Today that is compulsory, high schools are 
overcrowded, and universities are counting their students 
by the tens of thousands. The sciences are flourishing as 
they have never flourished before, and the facts of life and 
of the universe are becoming subjects intimately familiar 
to young and old, to high and low. Libraries have multi¬ 
plied tremendously, and the knowledge of the ages, the 
thoughts and experiences of man have been brought within 
easy access of all, and a home without books is less easily 
conceivable than is a home without the most essential sani¬ 
tary equipment. 

Think of the progress of medicine, to us the closest 
and most intimate of the sciences. Think of the fact that 
the great plagues that were wont to ravage the world are 
now known only as past historic facts, and that thanks to the 
improved standards of living, and the greater and more 
exact knowledge of sanitation and hygiene disease is steadily 
decreasing; that leprosy once the dread of man has now 
practically disappeared, that anti-toxin has abolished the 
terror of diphtheria, that the Pasteur treatment has abolished 
the scourge of hydrophobia, that Jenner’s vaccine has made 
small-pox exceedingly rare, that infant mortality is rapidly 
declining, and that progress is seen even in the battle with 
tuberculosis, and we realize, then, that at least on this score 
the world is making rapid forward strides, and is not only 
not growing worse, but is infinitely better. 

Compare the position of woman in the past with her 
position today. No longer a chattel, a piece of property 
for men-folk to dispose of at their whim, she has slowly 
emerged from her state of enforced degradation, until she 
now rises in the flowering dignity of human personality, 
the mother of the race, to be sure, but also the comrade 
and co-worker, the equal of man in the struggle and task 
of life, bringing to it mind and heart, sweetness and en- 


46 

thusiasm, and a sense of consecration which is transforming 
and beatifying! 

Let us recall gratefully that human slavery has now dis¬ 
appeared from every civilized land, but let us, as we ask 
ourselves the question whether the world is growing worse, 
also recall that it is less than three score and ten years since 
this nation poured its hearts’ blood out in civil war to erase 
the disgrace and crime of slavery from its body politic. 

Yes, the ideal of human brotherhood is gaining ground. 
Not only has slavery been abolished, not only has woman 
been emancipated and enfranchised, but like the burning 
bush remaining unconsumed, by reason of the flame’s being 
not the fire of destruction, but the divine blaze of liberation 
and redemption, so do' we find the ideal of human, brother¬ 
hood burning ever brighter, unquenchably. In every sphere 
of human endeavor, in every walk of life do we find its 
glow. 

The poor is more truly our brother today than yester¬ 
day, and we conceive it our duty not only to help him, but 
to look into the causes of his poverty that poverty may be 
prevented. The social misfits, whether through disease or 
life-sapping habits, whether through industrial injustice or 
political corruption, whatever the causes, we know them to¬ 
day as our brothers for whom we are responsible, and we 
study their cases now not only to offer palliation, but to 
find the underlying causes for the wrecks and tragedies of 
lives, and in accordance with our findings we are today 
organizing our entire social machinery to the end that no 
such wreckage and ruin may occur in the future. 

And in the light of this ideal of human brotherhood 
and social responsibility, we find that Social Justice is 
ceasing to be merely a high sounding phrase, but is becom¬ 
ing ever more real through legislative enactment and in con¬ 
sequence of an educated and aroused public opinion and of 
a sensitive social conscience. 

Wealth is becoming ever more a public trust and less 
and less a matter of greedy and selfish possession. Business 


47 


and industrial standards are changing to conform to these 
higher conceptions, and one has but to examine the tendency 
of industrial legislation in the last two decades, observe the 
growing mass of regulations concerning child labor and 
woman labor, the hours of labor and compensation insur¬ 
ance, health and safety regulations, and compare these with 
earlier standards to realize fully that the world is growing 
better, and is becoming a better, safer place to live in than 
ever before. 

Even in the sphere of Religion, the most conservative 
force in society, even there marvellous progress has been 
made. We have but to recall that in the literature of Greece 
and Rome we look in vain for evidences of religious liberty. 
We need but think of the unholy Inquisition which was 
not formally abolished until 1834, recall the persecutions 
and pyres, the intolerance and the crimes perpetrated in its 
name, recall the Index of Prohibited Books, recall the 
coercions and compulsions practiced in its behalf, and re¬ 
call “the definitive triumph in our century of the idea that 
nobody ought for religious motives to be persecuted or de¬ 
prived of full juridicial capacity,” * to appreciate fully that 
progress is being made, that man is marching on, and in 
light of the evidence available to realize that 

“ . . . thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs, 

And* the thoughts of men are widened with the 
process of the suns.”—(Tennyson.) 

Even in international relations, we find the ideal of 
human brotherhood taking root. The World War notwith¬ 
standing, its magnitude and cruelty notwithstanding—war 
was never more accursed of men and world peace never a 
more fervent and more realizable hope than it is today. If 
this war has proven anything it has proven that there is a 
measure of truth in Napoleon’s cynical remark that in war¬ 
fare God was ever on the side of the strongest battalions, 


Francesco Ruffini—“Religious Liberty.’ 



48 


that in physical struggle and contest not Right is the mighti¬ 
est, but Might, brute force and power. And from this con¬ 
ception man recoils with horror, and with that perseverance 
which has marked his progress through the ages, he now 
turns earnestly, seriously to realize the ideal of international 
co-operation, of international association and agreement. 
The ever enlarging scope of International Law, the recent 
Washington Conference for the limitation of armaments, 
the convening within the last fortnight of the International 
Court of Justice—all of these are indices of the tendency of 
the times, and point to the undoubted fact that Lincoln’s 
faith in Right as the mightiest force on earth is becoming, 
however slowly, the established faith of mankind. 

“Is the world growing worse ?” Not if we view life in 
its entire complexity. Not if we try to see it whole, view 
its progress from humblest beginnings to its present higher 
plane. 

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” does not characterize 
life’s hopes and, struggles and faith. “A chasing after the 
wind,” is not the answer to life’s disappointments. There 
is no cause for despair, as there is no reason for Pessimism, 
for they who have eyes and see, who have ears and hear, 
who have hearts and feel, can verily behold that 

“Out of the shadows of night 
The world rolls into light; 

It is daybreak everywhere.”—(Longfellow.) 

This let us realize fully. And realizing it let us work 
patiently—since supreme patience is needed; let us serve 
hopefully—since hope is the driving force of progress. Thus 
let us work and strive towards the morning that is yet to be, 
the morning that is surely dawning. 


Series XXXV. 


No. 21. 


©tjittp GDimt §>?lf If ®ri»” 

A Discourse at Temple Keneseth Israel. 

By Rabbi Abraham J. Feldman. 

Philadelphia, March 26, 1922. 

I cannot recall a novel in recent years that, to me, was 
so fascinating, so stirring, so brilliant, as is A. S. M. 
Hutchinson’s novel, If Winter Comes. And judging by 
the enormous sales and circulation of the book as well as by 
the universal acclaim of literary critics which it received, 
my reaction to the book is neither unique nor surprising. 
From the purely literary point of view the book is a work 
of art. The style is splendid. “The dialogue,” says no 
less a critic than the editor of the Bookman, “sparkles, hits, 
jumps, races—does practically everything that human talk 
should. It is penetrating, bubbling with humor, pathos and 
genuine excitement. It is the novel of an expert crafts¬ 
man—it is vivid and real.” 

In brief, it is the story of Mark Sabre, a man who was 
a dreamer, a man who 

“saw much more clearly and infinitely more intensely with his mind 
than with his eye. ... It was not what the eye saw or the ear 
heard that interested him; it was what his mind saw, questing be¬ 
hind the scene and behind the speech, that interested him, and often, 
by the intensity of its perception, shook him. And precisely as 
beauty touched in him the most exquisite and poignant depths, so 
evil surroundings, evil faces dismayed him to the point of mysteri¬ 
ous fear, almost terror—” 

He was a man who loved books, and loved the world of 
ideas and ideals to which the books led him and guided him. 
He was a man with a soul sensitized to the higher prompt¬ 
ings of life. He was a man possessed of the “milk of 
human kindness” to a degfee which, as the world judges 
happiness, makes the average man unhappy, miserable, un¬ 
comfortable, the butt of cynical jest, the target for the prac¬ 
tical, and the “sensible.” He was a man who saw the good 
in the humblest, and the spiritually beautiful in the lowliest 
He judged men by his own high ideal standards, and yielded 
his own interest where this interest might have hurt an¬ 
other. The ideal of his life was expressed in the conception 
“God is love,” therefore “he that dwelleth in love dwelleth 






50 


in God and God in him.” To that ideal he chose to be true, 
that conception was the motivating force of his life, upon 
the altar of that ideal, unassumingly, modestly, but cour¬ 
ageously and faithfully he sacrificed his fortune, his health, 
almost his life. 

His exact counterpart in the book is his wife Mabel. She 
is cold of temperament, conventionally correct, socially a 
snob, heartlessly, brutally practical. He had enthusiasms 
and sympathies; she had none. He had imagination; she 
was devoid of it. 

“To Mabel there was nothing mysterious in birth, or in living, 
or in death. She simply would not have understood had she been 
told there was any mystery in these things. One was born, one 
lived, one died. What was there odd about it? Nor did she see 
anything mysterious in the intense preoccupation of an insect, or 
the astounding placidity of a primrose growing at the foot of a 
tree. An insect—you killed it. A flower—you plucked it. What’s 
the mystery? 

“Her life was living among people of her own class. Her 
measure of a man or of a woman was, Were they of her class? . . . 

“Music was a tune, and was either a tune or merely music. A 
book was a story, and if it was not a story, it was simply a book. 
A flower was a decoration. . . . 

“She thought charity meant giving jelly and red flannel to the 
poor; she thought generosity meant giving money to some one; 
she thought selfishness meant not giving money to some one. 
She had no idea that the only real charity is charity of mind, and 
the only real generosity, generosity of mind, and the only real 
selfishness, selfishness of mind. And she simply would not have 
understood if it had been explained to her.” 

She could not and did not understand her husband, and 
they drifted farther and farther apart. 

In his business, Mark Sabre was also not in a harmon¬ 
ious element nor sympathetically adjusted, because of his 
point of view, because of his sense of honor, because of his 
peculiar outlook upon life, the point of view of a dreamer 
and idealist rather than that of the matter-of-fact, hard- 
headed, flint-hearted, unscrupulous Mr. Fortune, (the head 
of the firm), or of the equally as*unscrupulous, Twyning, a 
scheming, treacherous, Janus-faced sycophant. 

The war broke out and Sabre was swept off his feet by 
the idealism that came with the war, and after several un¬ 
successful attempts to enlist he succeeds. When he returns, 
crippled, he finds that he had been pushed out of the busi¬ 
ness. His wife is increasingly cold and apathetic. And to 
add to the complicated situation, a letter comes to Mabel 
from a young girl whom Mark introduced into his home to 


5i 


be his wife’s companion while he was in France, a letter tell¬ 
ing that she had become a mother and in her desperate plight 
as a social outcast so long as she retained her baby, appeals 
to Mrs. Sabre to take her and her baby into her home. The 
girl refuses to reveal the paternity of the child—and cir¬ 
cumstantial evidence seems to draw Mabel’s suspicion that 
her husband, who intercedes for the girl and baby, is the 
father of the child. His plea is interesting. He feels that 
the girl has a claim upon them. He says: 

“In the first place, she’d turned to us in her abject misery for 
help and that alone established a claim, even if it had come from 
an utter stranger. It establishes a claim because here is a human 
creature absolutely down and out come to us, picking us out from 
everybody, for succour. You’ve got to respond. You’re picked out. 
You! One human creature by another human creature. Breathing 
the same air. Sharing the same mortality. Responsible to the 
same God. You’ve got to. You can’t help yourself. You’re caught. 
If you hear some one appealing to any one else you can scuttle out 
of it. Get away. Pass by on the other side. Square it with your 
conscience any old how. But when that some one comes to you, 
you’re done, you’re fixed. You may hate it. You may loathe and 
detest the position that’s been forced on you. But it’s there. You 
can’t get out of it. The same earth as your earth is there at your 
feet imploring you; and if you’ve got a grain, a jot of humanity, 
you must, you must, out of the very flesh and bones of you, re¬ 
spond to that cry of this your brother or your sister made as you 
yourself are made. 

“Well, . . . that’s one claim the girl has on us, and to my 

way of thinking it is enough. But she has another, a personal claim. 
She’d been in our house, in our service; she was our friend; sat 
with us; eaten with us; talked with us; shared with us; and now, 
now, turned to us. Good God, is that to be refused? Is that to 
be denied? Are we going to repudiate that? Are we going to say, 
‘Yes, it’s true you were here. You were all very well when you 
were of use to us; that’s all true and admitted; but now you’re in 
trouble and you’re no use to us; you’re in trouble and no use.’ 
Good God, are we to say that?” 

Against the objection of Mabel he takes the girl and 
baby in, and his wife leaves him, entering suit for divorce, 
the grounds being a violation of the Seventh Command¬ 
ment. 

He becomes a social outcast, isolated and ignored by 
all. While he is away on a brief vacation the girl commits 
suicide, killing her child at the same time, and at the cor¬ 
oner’s inquest Mark is found guilty of being the indirect 
cause of the double tragedy, the most serious evidence ad¬ 
duced being a network of lies spun by Twyning, the mem¬ 
ber of the firm with which Sabre had been connected. 

Upon his return home from the agonizing ordeal of the 
inquest he found a note left by the deceased in which she 


52 


reveals the fact that Twyning's son now at war, to whom 
she had been secretly engaged, was the father of her child! 

Maddened by the indignities heaped upon him by the 
lying testimony of Twyning he rushes to Twyning’s office 
prepared to “cram the letter down his throat.” When he 
arrives he finds Twyning distraught by the news of his 
son’s death in war. Shall Sabre now avenge himself ? 
Shall he now cover the name of the soldier killed in the 
sendee with the ignominy heaped upon himself? Shall he 
add to the burden of grief of a father—even though that 
father be his treacherous foe—add to the woes of a father 
by proving to him that this “heroic” son was a cowardly 
wretch ? • 

The ideal by which Mark Sabre guided his life comes 
to the surface of his consciousness. “He that dwelleth in 
love dwelleth in God and God in him; for God is love.” 
And Mark Sabre throws the letter—the only proof of his 
innocence, the only evidence that could clear his name, he 
throws this letter into the flame in the fireplace, 

“and went over to Twyning and stood over him. He patted Twyn¬ 
ing’s heaving shoulders. ‘There, there Twyning. Bad luck, Bad luck 
. . • Bear up, Twyning, Soldier’s death . . . Finest death 

. . . Died for his country . . . Fine boy.’ . . .” 

But the ordeal has proven too great for him. A hem¬ 
orrhage of the brain occurs, and after many months of 
suffering and struggle within the shadow of death, he re¬ 
covers to find that Mabel had in the meantime divorced 
him and married again. But he finds his reward, or con¬ 
solation, in the true love and fine understanding, and 
never failing confidence in him of Nona, his boyhood sweet¬ 
heart, now his understanding, sympathetic, loving wife. 

Thus the story, in briefest outline. 

It is woven about this one man, whom the author 
seems to love surpassingly. Some people with whom I 
discussed the book feel an aversion for Sabre. He is weak, 
they claim, in that he permits people to do him injustice, 
he is not vigorous, not manly. He deserved what he got— 
say some. In this work-a-day world this type of idealist 
has no place. The dreamer, the visionary, is useless; more 
than that,—he is an encumbrance. These are some of the 
comments I heard, although it should be said, that they 
are the comments of a minority among the readers of this 
book. 


53 


I, for one, see no such weakness in the character. I, 
for one, see in Mark Sabre a type of man, but for whom, 
life today would still be at the low level of barbarism and 
on the plane of the uncivilized. I see in Mark Sabre a 
type of that company of souls truly brave of whom evolv¬ 
ing History has a growing roster, a type of them who dared 
to be true to themselves, who nobly dared to dream in a 
world of ^wrealties, and having dreamed had the supreme 
courage to guide their lives by the glow of their stirring 
ideals. I see in Mark Sabre one who is of that company of 
the aristocrats of the Ideal, who, in the face of crushing 
conventions, in the face of antiquated standards of conduct, 
standards false, and unworthy as they are false, dare to 
take their idealism seriously and strive to live by those 
high standards. 

It is not the weak man, the spineless creature that 
guides his life by his ideal. It is the strong of heart, the 
heroic of soul, the clean and honest of purpose, that is the 
true hero in the strife of life. Not he the weakling who 
accepts martyrdom rather than yield one jot or tittle of his 
principle. Not he the weakling who dares to be true to 
himself, and to his convictions. Rather is he the coward 
who, professing an ideal, compromises in the face of diffi¬ 
culty, flinches in the face of obstacles, and supinely yields 
for the sake of the material comforts, the conveniences, the 
things of the body, the considerations of prosperity, and 
the opinion and adulations of the thoughtless crowd. 
“Sacred courage,” says Emerson somewhere, “indicates 
that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world; 
that he is aiming neither at self nor comfort, but will ven¬ 
ture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.” 

An instance of such courage and devotion came to my 
notice recently. A colleague, a class mate of mine, occu¬ 
pied the pulpit in a southern community. On a Friday 
evening an infuriated white mob lynched a negro, 

“and” my friend writes me, “the corpse was dragged past the door 
of one of the most lovable Negro Baptist preachers, Bishop X, hon¬ 
ored in National Negro and Baptist religious circles. The mob also 
passed with the corpse by the Temple just as I was preaching. You 
may well imagine the disturbance and excitement. It was done, so 
I am assured, by the most representative members of this town’s 
aristocracy. The challenge was too strong for me not to take it 
up, and naturally enough, I am now looking for another pulpit.” 


54 


It was a challenge; a challenge to the honesty of the 
teacher. It was a challenge to the courage of the preacher. 
It was a challenge to the soul of the idealist. Here was a 
heinous crime committed, and the evidence of it was shame¬ 
fully and shamelessly brought to the very door of the man of 
God and of the house of- God. Should the Rabbi have 
remained silent? Should discretion have outweighed his 
honesty and sincerity? Should the physical suffering and 
privation which might have ensued for himself and his 
little family have deterred him from denouncing as he did 
the culprits, the “aristocracy,” the “representative citizens” 
who prate against Bolshevism and anarchy, who prate 
about “Law and Order,” who prate about the inviolability 
of the Constitution, prate about Democracy, prate about ours 
being a Government of laws, and at the same time permit 
the unspeakable crime of lynching, yea, perpetuate and per¬ 
petrate it by their own connivance and direct participation. 

This young Jewish teacher had to pay the price for 
his “indiscretion,” for having dared to 1 be true to himself, 
to his profession of faith, to the law of God and the imperi¬ 
ous urge of his conscience. Thank God, he was true! 

But who is the weakling in this disgraceful affair? 
Is it the man who had an ideal and proved true to it, or are 
those the brave, the courageous souls, who* subscribe to the 
same ideal but repudiate it when the test comes, when it 
means control of wrath, when it means self-restraint, when 
it means applying the ideal in conduct and living? 

And though Mark Sabre stood the test heroically 
when he chose to destroy the evidence that would have 
cleared his name rather than prove false to the ideal of 
divine love in human life which was his life’s ideal, they 
who find fault with this character presume to say that there 
is no such character living, that he is an unreal type, yea 
more, that he is an undesirable type. 

The answer that might be given them is that there is 
none so blind as he who would not see. On every hand, in 
every sphere and walk of life we may find men and women 
who are true to their ideals, and, after all, “our ideals are 
our better selves.” On every hand there are to be found 
men and women who have caught a glimpse of the Light 
and by that Light guide their lives, irrespective of the physi¬ 
cal consequences. They may not be found among those 
who justify their means by the end, the end being the ac- 


55 


cumulation of wealth, honestly or otherwise, after which 
they propose to cast away the evil of their ways, and seek 
to atone for the dishonesties and crimes, for their greed 
and cruelty, by doing an abundance of good, failing to 
realize that the evil they do can never be undone , and that 
judged by the standards of the soul, weighed in the scales 
of the Ideal, it is their own souls that have suffered the 
greatest shrinkage, their own lives that have become per¬ 
verted, their own hearts that have lost their human soft¬ 
ness, their own spiritual vision that has been dimmed, their 
own moral lives that have become singed and scorched and 
charred' in the process. 

It is claimed that the lives of the Mark Sabres are 
barren of results. They achieve and attain nothing. Again 
and again we hear it proclaimed as it was proclaimed of 
old, The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad! 
Again and again do we witness the spectacle of the man of 
vision persecuted because of his vision, the seeker after truth 
denounced as an outcast and a pariah, the inspired leader’s 
motives questioned, his name besmirched, his life filled with 
gall and bitterness. And just as frequently is History wit¬ 
ness to the fact that in despite the judgment of contempo¬ 
raries, that in despite the persecution and the defamation, 
the real factors in civilization, they who ultimately contrib¬ 
uted the most and gave the strongest impetus to progress 
were these very men of vision, these despised and accursed of 
men, men of sorrow in their lifetime, but the worshipped 
saints and seers of subsequent ages and generations! 

One has but to think of Baruch Spinoza, excommuni¬ 
cated by his own, accursed and read out of the household of 
Israel for daring to be true to his views and ideas, refusing 
to recant, preferring the curse of ostracism in honest free¬ 
dom to the questionable blessings of spiritual bondage. One 
thinks of Girolamo Savonarola, of Florence, inveighing 
mightily against the sins and misdeeds of his age, and of his 
choice of martyrdom in preference to becoming untrue to 
himself! One thinks of Israel’s prophets in an earlier age. 
One recalls the trials and travails of Jeremiah—his repeated 
imprisonments, the floggings to which he was subjected, the 
condemnation by his friends, the desertion by even his 
nearest relatives,' the violence and the abuse, the personal in¬ 
dignities to which he was subjected—all of which he might 
have escaped, he would have escaped had he but refrained 


56 


from speech, had he forsaken his ideal. But he chose 
persecution and abuse and indignities in preference to turn¬ 
ing false to his vision, in preference to becoming untrue to 
himself. 

One thinks of Amos, the shepherd of Tekoa, and of his 
famous answer to Amaziah, the Priest, when the latter pro¬ 
hibited him from speaking his message and bade him return 
to the hills of Tekoa whence he came, an answer so defiant 
and so challenging as to be elemental. 

One thinks of Elijah the Tishbite, uncompromising foe 
of idolatry, a restless wanderer, hounded and sought after as 
the foe of the State, as the disturber of the peace, as the rev¬ 
olutionary teacher. One thinks of his life and of his choice 
to remain true—even though he stand alone as the prophet 
of the One God, to remain fearless, to speak his message and 
speak it defiantly, hurling it into the very faces and teeth 
of the sinners and transgressors of his age. 

One thinks of these and of others who in their respec¬ 
tive ages and generations stood bravely by their convictions, 
and heroically endured vilification and defamation and oblo¬ 
quy, and one recalls those of today who with Hosea’s con¬ 
temporaries of yore say evil hanabi, meshuggo ish haruach, 
the prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad , and one 
wonders whether all those great souls have lived in vain, and 
suffered in vain. 

Insofar as no prophet of an earlier or later day has 
lived to see the fulfillment of his vision these “practical” 
souls of today who would measure idealism by the yardstick 
and weigh its value by the ounce or ton, may be justified in 
their claim that the seer and the dreamer and the man of 
vision are failures, miserable failures. But judged in the 
light of history, and by the influence those ideals wielded 
over human lives, and by the undoubted spiritual progress 
that has been made, however short the distance traversed 
may be, pne wonders whether Isaiah’s vision of the swords 
being beaten into plowshares, and of the ultimate dawn of 
universal brotherhood and peace is to be adjudged today as 
the inane vaporings of an insane man. 

In the inanimate world nothing comes into being except 
through much transformation, and in consequence of a tre¬ 
mendous expenditure of energy and strength. In the animate 
world nothing is born except after great travail and intense 
pain, and growth and development come only after careful 


57 


nurture and tender care. So, too, in the life of the spirit, in 
the world of ideas, in the quest after Truth, it is not until we 
experience much suffering and anguish, not until souls have 
been sorely tried, and sacrifices untold made, not until the 
world has suffered much and sacrificed much, can it bring to 
fulfillment the visions of its noblest children. And the more 
sublime the vision, the longer is the period of purification 
through suffering, and the further off is the day of the 
dreams’ realization. 

And one more query there is. Would these practical 
souls have had Savonarola and Huss, Jeremiah and Elijah, 
be otherwise than they were? Would they have preferred 
them to be otherwise than unyielding and uncompromis¬ 
ing, otherwise than true to themselves and to their enthrall¬ 
ing vision ? And who, pray, could have determined whether 
these men of the spirit were right or wrong? History has 
proved them right, and their persecutors wrong and unjust, 
just as history will yet justify the Mark Sabres of our own 
times, the lesser ones no less than the spiritual giants of our 
own age. Their lot it is to stand alone. Was it not Lowell 
who sang : 

“Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes,—they were souls that stood 
alone, 

While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, 

Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline 

To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, 

By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme 
design.” 

And if Ibsen was right, that “the strongest man in the world 
is he who stands most alone,” then it is these men in their 
respective spheres who are the towering spiritual Titans of 
our age. They are strong because they are unshaken in 
their idealism, they are strong because they have the Light 
by which to guide their path, they are strong because they 
are honest with themselves and honorable in their relations 
to their fellows, they are strong in the knowledge that they 
can fearlessly look at themselves and reviewing their lives 
can truthfully say: 

“The prize is not the wreath with envy rife, 

But to have been all our souls might be.”— Bates. 

Such, indeed, is the privilege of those who dare to be 
true to their own selves. And a rare privilege it is. It is 
given to few men to rise to the majesty of spiritual heroism 


58 

or of heroic idealism. Most of us are willing to be idealists 
so long as the Ideal imposes no difficulties, demands no sac¬ 
rifices, involves no disturbance of the placid flow of social 
life. But no sooner are we faced with situations where 
courageous speech is imperative, where energetic action is 
called for, situations which when honorably met involve 
sacrifice and endanger standing or position, then we flinch 
and falter and fail to prove our professed idealism. 

“The Time Demands 

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and willing hands. 

Men whom the lust of office does not kill; 

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; 

Men who possess opinions and a will; 

Men who have honor; men who will not lie; 

Men who can stand before a demagogue 

And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking; 

Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 

In public duty and in private thinking ”—/. G. Holland. 

These men are few, men of this calibre are scarce and 
rare. But those few today, as of yore, share the lot of Mark 
Sabre, the lot of the prophets of other days—the heart-cor¬ 
roding experience of isolation, of misunderstanding, of 
abuse and humiliation. 

Many may fall and succumb. But their every breath 
and every example has not been in vain, and somewhere, 
somehow, these become joined unto' the selfless, honest, and 
true lives of others, contributing to and functioning truly in 
behalf of, the betterment, the ennoblement of human life. 

Suffer they will. Struggle they must. But if they be 
truly sun-crowned, strong of mind, great of heart, and firm 
in faith, then can they no more resist the divine urge, they 
could no more be false to themselves than could the prophet 
of old, who, although in the deepest despair, yet felt that the 
word of God was shut up in his bosom and was there like a 
raging, consuming flame which he could not control. 

They will be scoffed and mocked at. They will be taken 
advantage of. But they will endure. They will travail. 
They will continue to guide their lives as their like have ever 
done, as I pray God it may be given us to ; guide our lives, 
by the rule of conduct which Shakespeare quotes: 

“To thine own self be true; 

And it must follow as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any man.” 


Other Published Discourses 

By 

RABBI ABRAHAM J. FELDMAN 


Words in Season:— 

Contains the following addresses: 

A Dual Consecration (Installation Address) 
Americanization—True and False 
What is Wrong with Religion? 

Religion Socialized 

Price in Paper 35 cents, Postage Extra 



The Undying Fire and other Discourses 

Contains the following addresses : 

Accused Versus Accuser 

The Maccabean Challenge (A Hanukkah Discourse) 
“What of the Night?” (A Rosh Hashanah Sermon) 
“The Undying Fire” (A discussion of the Book of Job) 
Which is the Way? (A Yom Kippur Sermon) 
Sabbath Observance and Sabbatarians (3 Discourses) 
Fear Not, O Israel! 

America’s Immortals—Have They Lived in Vain? 

The Pharisees and Their Detractors 
Our Heritage 

Price in Paper r5 cents, Postage Extra 























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